Spiritualism As Spiritualists Have Written of It

SPIRITUALISM AS SPIRITUALISTS HAVE WRITTEN OF IT

By HERBERT V. O'NEILL

With a Préfacé by THE MOST REVEREND

RICHARD DOWNEY, d .d „ Ph.D., l l .d . ARCHBISHOP OF LIVERpOOL

BURNS OATES & WASHBOURNE LTD LONDON

PUB1ISHERS TO THÇ HODY SEE NIHILr OBSTAT :

E douardus Ca n , Mah on ry, S.Th.D. Censor Deputatus.

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E . Morrogh B e rn ard , Vie. Gen. W ES-WOS ASTEMÏ* Su j m Juin, i$i4.

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Ftrst pubhshed in 1944

MABE AND FRÏNTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR B DR NS GATES & WASHBOURNE LTD DEDICATION

To E. Gerald Stanley, Esq,, to whom I owe more titan he can réalisé. CONTENTS PAGE F o r b w o r d ...... 7 P r é f a c é ...... * ♦ 9 I. # Â W a r n in g t o A i l M é d iu m s * . . . *5 IL I s S piritualism a R e l i g io n < . . . * 2 6

III. D e a t h —H e a v e n v . T h e S u m m e r L à n d i>. T h e E l u e I s l a n d 46

IV. P e r à s d u a a b A s t r is . . . 6 7

V. * W h is t l e , a n d F l l c o m e * ... 9 1

VI. T h e C à t h o l i c P o i n t o f V ie w —I ♦ . 1 1 4

T h e C à t h o l i c P o i n t o f V ie w —II ♦ 13 2

[ 6 ] FOREWORD

T his littie t>ook owes its inception and publication to His Grâce the Archbishop of Liverpool, Without his encouragement I would not hâve written it. In order to anticipate the question likely to be put by possible Spiritualist readers, viz, : * What can a Catholic priest, who is forbîdden to attend séances, possibly know about Spiritualism i ’ I can State that I hâve enjoyed the friendship of leading Spiritualists and hâve corresponded in a friendly way with others, and hâve studied the subjeet closely for over thirty-five years. A former editor of The Tm Worlds (Mr, J. J, Morse) used to allow me unrestricted hospitality in the columns of that paper. The late Mr. David Gow, formerly editor of Light, was a Personal friend. He used to send me ail the foreign Spiritualist publications received in his office— Il Veltro, La Vie Mystérieuse, Psyché, Die Uebersinnliche Welt, Luce e Ombra, Psyschische Studien, Le Courrier Spirite Belge, etc. We lunched together *, and though in controversy we were utterly opposed we were friends. He wrote to me once that 1 4 fought with a clean rapier and was no cloak-and-dagger merchant,’ At the time of his illness his wife wrote to me (in a letter I still possess, dated Jan. 9, 1936) : 4 I believe there are few people who hâve such a wide and deep knowledge of our subjeet.’ In another letter which I still treasure, the late vétéran protagon» ist of Spiritualism in America, Dr. J. M . Peebles, wrote ï 4 Readîng your writings, my dear Sir, I thought it probable you were a medium*’ These testimonials, so to speak, are proffered merely to show that I do not write 4 without the book.’ If those Spiritualists who attack the Catholic Church would only give, I won’t say one-half, but one-tenth the application to the study of Catholic text-books that I hâve given to Spiritualist teaching in English, American and Continental books and newspapers, I am fully convinced that they would alter their views completely* Herbert V . O’Neill. St. Joan of Arc, Bootle, Liverpool, 30. Feast of the Apparition of St. Michael the Archange!, 1944. [7]

PREFACE BY

The Most Reverend Richard Downey, D .D ., Ph D ,, L L ,D „ Archbishop of Liverpool

Nearly sixty years hâve elapsed since the Society for Psychical Research was founded, for the purpose, as it stated in its first manifesto, of making * an organized and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such ternis as ** mesmeric,” H psychical/' and “ spiritualistic 'V Amongst its first investigators were Mr, Hereward Carrington, Mr. Bagally and the Hon. Everard Fielding. After years of patient and careful investigation the verdict of ail three was unanimous as to the high percentage of * psychic phenomena ' produced by frattd and trickery, Mr. Carrington in his Personal Expériences in Spiritualism placed the percentage at 98, and no one suspects him of overstatement. It is with the remaining a per cent, that we are here concerned. There are, so to speak, various schools of interpreters.

(i) There are, first of ail, the Naturalists and Rationalists who, relying on the uniformity of nature, with Browning, class ail médiums with Sludge, who could 4 play you twenty tricks miraculous/ From Podmore to Clodd there hâve been many who dismiss ail psychical phe nomena as * sheer humbug/ But this robust school ignores the evidence. Carrington, Bagally and Fielding never hesitated to expose the frauds of Eusapia Palladino whenever they detected them, but they hâve put it on record that the result of séances held in their own rooms at a hôtel in Naples, under the auspices of the Society for Psychical Research, was such as to convince ail three that genuine psychical manifestations of a remarkable character had been obtained* (See Proceedingst S.P .R ., vol. xxiii, pp. 309-596). (ii) At the opposite pôle are those who roundly and sam phrase ascribe ail spiritistic phenomena, not manifestly pro duced by fraud, to demoniacal agency. They seem to give the devil more than his due, and inddentally insult C9 l PREFACE bis âûgetîc intelligence by crediting bim with the ap- paUing drive! churned out by modem médiums. There are other and more serions difficulties against this pro position. It bas been pointed out by Greeley and other hostile critics of Spirituaüsm that 4 spirit messages' bave not infrequentîy brought about a reformation of tife on the part of drunfcards and libertines, and there are even instances of such communications leading their redpients to make submission to the Catholic Church. If these messages be from the devil, we can only say with Greeley that his Satanic Majesty's character has been much maligned, and that his biography ought to be re- written. To say that in these instances the devil was throwing a sprat to catch a mackerel is gratuitous, and in any case hardly a satisfactory answer. Again, it is uxged, that if the upholders of the out-and-out demoniacal theory were consistent they ought to attribute the safety o f the sleepwalker in his perilous journeyings to angelic guidance. And ftnally, it is contended that the whole theory gœs beyond the available evidence, that the con clusion is very much wider than the premises. (üi) Thirdly, there are the 4 true beh’evers' who regard Car- rington's a per cent, of unexplained phenomena, and a good deal more o f their own, as manifestations of discamate spirite. Outside the ranks of Spiritualists this hypothesis is regarded as at least unproven. (iv) Amidst the dm of contending parties the psychologist can hardly make Mmseîf heard. Yet he really has something o f value to contribute to the discussion, if the disputants who émit mare beat than light would only give him a hearing. It is surely to the experimental psychologist that one naturaîly turns for a scientific explanation of psychîc phenomena. It is a sound principle to seek ftrgt for a natural explanation before having recourse to die pretematural. Is psychology really as bankrupt in explanation of psychical phenomena as Spiritualists would hâve us suppose { Years agpo Carrington pleaded for a laboratory in which psychical phenomena could be sdentificaUy investigated. He argued : ïln ta we can appîy defimte 44 laboratory methods ” and study pyritics by mains of physicaf instruments far more délicate than [îo] PREPACS our senses# it is probable that the présent State of things wifl con tinue to exist ; but it îs my firm belief that# were a laboratory fitted up with physical and electrical apparatus# stûtable for tbis work# and if we could by their aid study a promismg case of 44 psychic ** or u mediumistic ” phenomena# we should (wxthm ten years or so) arrive at some definite conclusions. We shotdd then know something about the laws and conditions trader which telepathy# clairvoyance# telekenesis# etc.# operate, and not until this is donc# I beîieve# will such a positive conclusion be reached/' (Personal Expériences in Spiritualisai, p. 258). Much has been accoraplished in this direction since these words were written. Mr. Harry Price succeeded in procuring laboratory tests which certainly brought no advantage to the Spiritualist cause. Again the resuit of a sériés of psychological tests apph'ed to trance- médiums was to show that in no case did the medium in the trance-state rise above the mental level of his waking-state ; that h is 4 révélations * were# as a matter of fact, nothing more than out- pourings from his dream-consciousness# or 4 télépathie * messages from more intelligent sitters. The utterances of trance-mediums in general are largely explainable according to the ordinary psycho-analytic prindples for the interprétation o f dreams. Every dream# we are told# represents# in symbolic form, the fulfilment of a repressed wish ; and certainly the utterances of trance-mediums abound in instances of desires fulfilled. Because the medium in his waking-state wishes that there should be no hell and no suffering in 4 the beyond,' the dream-consciousness asserts that there is noue. Because M r. Vale Owen# with the rest o f us# was tired o f the long spell o f wet weather# his# or the medium's# dream-consciousness asserted that# though there are clouds# there is no rain in that wonderful heaven o f hts— a heaven# by the way# that is very obviously spun out of his own inner consciousness# so like is it to a glorified rectory standing in its own grounds. Because Sir Arthur Conan Doÿle was an advocate o f easier divorce his médiums very naturaily assure him that4 on the other side f spirits dwell in groups# but only 4 affinitded * spirits are together# husbands and wives in many cases being astral miles apart. Because Sir Oliver Lodge was interested in physics his médiums tell him how bricks are manufactured in spirit-land# and how the essence of terrestrial cîothes passes over and is woven into spirit-dothes on etherial looms. A spirit hypothesis of any kind seems hardly necessary to account for * such stufif as dreams are made of/ Titl PREFACE But, it îs contended, there is steraer stuff in trance-utterances. Of the sternest stuff Dr. Quackenbos writes in his remarkable book, Body and Spirit : 1 The writer has never heard a spiritistic medium say anything that was not readily compréhensible on the theory of thought-transference. He has never seen a medium do anything that could not be rationally explained as due to the action of supersensible psychic force ' (p. 277). There are many psychoîogists, such as the late Professor Münsterberg, who dia not think it necessary to hâve recourse to the debatable theory of thought-transference in order to explain the phenomena. Münsterberg, after a careful sdentific investigation of the case of Beulah Miller, came to the conclusion that she possessed the faculty of reading, not other people's minds, but other people’s unpre- meditated actions ; in psycho-analytic jargon, she interrupted their motivations from the unconscious. Most professional médiums can very truthfully say with Sludge : 4 Fm eyes, ears, mouth of me, one gaze and gape, Nothing éludés me, everything*s a hint/ Years ago the celebrated psycho-analyst, Dr. Jung, advanced a psychological theory to account for ghosdy apparitions. They are, according to him, entirely subjective— the resuit of a crisis in the mternedne strife that goes on unceasingly deep down in the uneonsdousness of each one of us between the ego-complex and the constellation of complexes around it and inimical to it. Thus, to take the case of Swedenborg. He was a hard-headed mathematidan and his ego-complex bade him, in his own interests, keep to mathematics. But from his earliest years he had a * m ysticalr complex which not infrequently asserted itself. The Dictionary of General Biography records how 4 he then suffered from acute dyspepsia and an attack of temporary insanity/ after which period of unconsdous psychological incubation, he had visions and conversed with the mighty dead of ail âges, his chief visitants being poets and musicians. Clearly ' in his case, the repressed 4 mystical ’ complex triumphed over the ego-complex and avenged its former repression by halludnatory expression. Of psychological théories purporting to account for abnormal psychical occurrences there is no end. But when the psycho- îogist has had his say to the M l, there remains a margin of admittedly unexplained psychical phenomena. To account for some of the marvels of the séance-room on psychological grounds is by no means to preclude the possibility of Satanic intervention. C 13] PREFACE The Church has laid down some very defitute theological principles relative to this matter, She teaches, on theological grounds, that spirits good and bad do exist, and that they are capable of entering into communication with man, subject to God’s sanction— His positive permission in the case of good spirits, His toleration in the case of bad ones, What bad spirits hâve done once they can do again, and we know from the Gospels how the disciples cast out devils in Christ's name. The evil efïects, both physical and moral, of Spiritualism are admitted on ail hands, and hâve been pointed out by psychologists, and even by investigators who regard SpirituaHsm as a gigantic System of fraud. Podmore, for instance, wams his readers that to take part in a séance may be to assist at a process of moral de- gradation. It is true, of course, that these evil efïects may be explainable on physiological or psychological grounds, but they are of such a character as to constitute strong presumptive evidence of diabolic origin, and the Church, in the practical guidance of her children, acts on this presumption, at least hypothetically. Her condemnation of Spiritualism is simply a practical application of the theological principle that to hold communication with evil spirits is wrong. As to whether diabolic intervention takes place in any particular case the Church pronounces no judgment. That is a question of fact to be dedded on the evidence. But whether in any particular case there be Satanic intervention or not makes no différence with regard to the culpability of attending the séance. The Catholic who attends does a thing which the Church in her wisdom has forbidden in the gravest possible manner. It is further to be noted that modem Spiritualism, ever since its introduction to this country in 1853, has taken the form of a religion, and a religion the basic tenet of which is directly subversive of the teaching of Christianity that the deposit of revealed truth was closed, once and for ever, with the death of the last Apostle. But, it may be asked, is not the prohibition of the Church a piece of mere ecdesiastical législation which she might set aside in the light of subséquent sdentific discovery i By no means, Her prohibition is tantamount to a formulation of divine positive law. The cérémonial law of the Old Testament has passed away, but not so the injunctions which refer to the natural law or the funda- mental principles of religion, The prohibition, * Neither let there be found among you anyone that . . . seeketh the truth from the dead/ (Deuteronomy xviii, 10, 11), has surely perpétuai validity. Here is a divine categorical impérative proscribing any attempt at

[ 13 3 PREFACE aeekmg troth îtom the dead, even though they died in the Lord. Though the^r may bave died in the odour of sanctity intercourse with them » rwnred to divine initiative. Tbis is a point not jgœeraljy grasped by Spirituahsts who are continually citing a p p m tk m o f Our Lady and the saints in support of their creed. They ignore the aJi-important fact that these apparitions were not sought by the persans to whom they were vouchsafed ; St. Bernardette, for instance, was astomshed when Our Lady appeared to her î she was neither seeking nor expecting anythtng of the kkd, The evokîng of spirits by Spirituahsts is quite another «wttef* The Church's uncompromising attitude towards Spiritualism ts not something new, called for, as it were, by the périls of our days. What but _ a œost fierce condemnation of everything ownected with Spiritualism could account for the amazing action of the Ephesians of whom we read m the Acts (xix, 19) : 4 and many of them who bad foUowed curious arts brought together their books and bumt them before ail. And, counting the price of them, they found the money to be 50,000 pièces of silver {* They made a bonftre to the value of some £3,500. A similar holocaust would hardly purge sonie of our large dties to-day, Fr. QTïeâTs book is particularly welcome at the présent time which is witncssiag a recrudescence of Spiritualism owing, on the om hand, to the desire of the bereaved for tangible assurance of the Kml-sumval of kwed ones kîlkd in the war and, on the otfeec hand, to the lass laudabk desire of unscrupulous charktans to mate capital ont of the mouraerst longing and credulity. Fr. QTfetM has made a careful study of the whole suhject over a great ntmaber of years, is conversant with the literature in most modem languages, and has had personal contact with many of the acknow- fedged kaders o f the Spiritualist movement at home and abroad, He tes, tfaerefore, unique qualifications for giving to the public a coraprehmave and up^toniate présentation of the cuit in its var« l ram ficattons, Tins litrtk book is in itself a valuable bureau de aMUmtatmn, for the student and a safe guide to the man-in-the- Rreâ; It is free from the dullness of so many of the tomes on SpmtoaHsui, and Fr. O’Neill is to be congratulated on his skilful sæfecticiï of material and on his lightness of touch in dealing with *** , He » admittedly cntkal, but his critidsm is fair and honest km , atone ail, based on facts. Obviously much research has goæ to the making of this informative volume, ï

* A WARNING TO ALL MEDIUMS *

D espite the agitation that is going on at the présent time for the repeal of the law against fortune-telling# and the howls of indigna tion raised by Spiritualists at the prosecution of médiums# the words of the above heading are not taken from a police notice ; nor are they the cry of some deceived heartbroken * sitterr who has corne away from a séance dispirited and disillusioned, They form the heading to a leading article from the pen of the editor of Psychic Nw$, in the issue of November 3 7 # 1 9 4 3 » My readers are asked to note that the warning is addressed not toafew médiums# nor to some médiums# but to * all * médiums» To m y mind that leader# which we shall analyse later, is also a WARNING TO ALL WHO ARE TEMPTED TO CONSULT MEDIUMS» To disabuse# disillusion and enlighten any who are îndined to think that there 4 may be something* in Spiritualism is the purpose of this book* The book is not intended as a study in Psychical Research. A study of that kind would need a very much larger volume than the format of this sériés o f 4 Présent D ay Problems ' allows* What is aimed at is the présentation of such a case against Spiritualism that all Catholics at least will see for themselves how hollow# how fraudulent# how contradictory a movement it is# and thereby be deterred from having anything to do with it. In the attempt to convince possible non-Catholic readers# as well as Catholics, the damning évidence against Spiritualism will be provided by quotations from the writings of non-Catholic investigators of Spiritualistic phenomena and from the admissions# as to fraud and unsatisfactoriness# made by Spiritualists them selves, At the moment of penning these words not only Spiritualist newspapers# but others (like The Leader) are excitedly concemed over the prosecution of médiums by the police» Such prosecu- [153 SPIRITUALISM tions are quite justified, The behaviour of many present-day, médiums is most heartless, consdously cruel and abominable to the extreme. By fraud and Wholesale déception they are battening on the sorrows and miseries of the anxious and the bereaved, They are lying for money, indifferent to the pain they may cause. And they know it* As in the last Great War, so in this one, The harvest of Death grows day by day on the fields of battle. Death is no gleaner, Each sweep of hls scythe means a household in mourning and many a widow and many a fatherless child, There are countless sad hearts in the world to-day. What wonder, then, if the thoughts of the nations are turned to the problem of the life beyond the grave* There are other hearts that are troubled too ; the hearts of those who hâve received the laconic message : * Missing/ The genuine Christian has learned from Christ to say, in his hour of Gethsemane : * Thy Will be done/ The dead, he knows, are in the keeping of their Maker. But the mourner who has no txue Christian faîth has little other consolation but to nurse Ms grief, T o such as these last the daims of Spiritualisme with its alleged promise of communication with the dead, offer â solace wMch some of thon do not refuse. Do they ail get the solace ^ Do they ail get the promised information i Or do they rather fmd, as Stainton Moses put it, that 4 it is extremely difficult to get anything Hke definite and précisé facts plainly put * i The answer is supplîed by Psychic News* The leader referred to above is beaded ; * A Wakning to all Médiums/ As stated already, it is a waming not to a few médiums, nor to same médiums, but to all médiums. I t b e g i n s î 4 Some of our médiums are unwittingly performihg a disservice to Spiritualism, They are confronted with harassed people who, in the absence of official information, yearn for news of loved ones in the Services described as 44 missing,” , , , * Perpkxed readers tell of contradictory messages from médiums, some averring that these 44 missing men ” hâve passed on, others declarmg that they are still on earth and will return to their homes.. . * E16 ] * A WARNING TO ALL M E D IU M S * ' In view of these circumstances, médiums are warned against raising the hopes of anxious sitters. Truth and frankness, in the end, are the best guides, even if it means disappointing those who cling to the hope that their loved ones are not 44 dead/' * No service is rendered by raising expectations that will be dashed to the ground. In times of difficulty when nearly ail the odds are against successful spirit communication, it is best to be cautions/ Those are the words of the editor of what is ciaimed to be * The Spiritualist Newspaper with the World's Largest Net Sale/ An analysis of the * Warning ' establishes the purpose of this chapter, viz. the useîessness of the alleged messages» M ore, it gives away the fact that the * messages ' are not from the spirit world, but are the medium’s own concoction ; hence the déclara tion : _ 4 Truth and. frankness, in the end, are the best guides, even if it means disappointing those who cling to the hope that their loved ones are n ot44 dead,n * So that, in addition to the admission that4 in times of difficulty » » » nearly ail the odds are against successful spirit communica tion * we are presented with the further admission that some médiums are liars. There you hâve the callous, open admission, by the editor of * The Spiritualist Newspaper with the WorkTs Largest Net Sale/ that médiums are not ail honest. His 4 warning * makes plain that these médiums to whom his leader is addressed (and he addresses it to a ll) are practising this déception consciously, They know they are telling lies. That is why he writes 4 médiums are warned against raising the hopes of anxious sitters * ; that is why he States that * truth and frank ness, in the end, are the best guides * ; that is why he ends with the advice : 4 it is best to be cautions/ Now, if the médiums concerned were in a genuine trance when delivering these lying messages there would be no sense in issuing the warning ; or if they were genuinely receiving those deceiving communications from the spirit-world there would still be no need for the warning ; a medium in a State of trance is not directly responsible for his or her words or actions whilst in the trance ? and if the message really was communicated by a 4 spirit * the medium could disclaim all responsibility for the inaccurate utterance. But because the writer of the warning leader knows perfectly well that the 4 messages * are fraudulent he feels caUed upon to issue a word of advice to the culprits concerned.

[I 7 l B SPIRITUALISM la that leading artidc there is not a trace of sympathy for the sorrowing 4 harassed people * who are deceived, nor is there any cottdenmatiofl of the heardess déception practised ; ail the editor is concemed with is the 4 disservice to Spiritualisme _ One is led to wonder woald even that waming hâve been issued if the police had mot been busy rounding ttp some of these shameless médiums» h it from characters such as these that the anxious and the bereaved really hope to receive the truth about the fate of the nmsing and the killed 4 The tesson to be îeamed from the newspaper article in question beats out the character of SpirituaHst4 messages * which they hâve borne since modem Spiritualism began» It is a long story of unfiilfilled promises, fantastic daims, dubious phenomena and lying messages. The only thing to be said in its favour is that it bas led a few blank materiahsts to a beh'ef in the existence and surviva! of the human soûl. The late Mr. David Gow, formerly editor of Lîght, a man whose friendship I shared, made that con fession to me— vis, that Spirituaîist phenomena broke down his agnostictsm and îed him to believe that there was a life after death. Fcc Spiritualism as a religion he had no use. Robert Blatchford made a similar confession. Dennis H. Bradley took the same attitude. But, a reader might ask, does not the fact that Spiritualism has led people to a belief in a future life justify people in practising it 4 In reply to that question I may be pardoned for quoting from that most entertaining and instructive book, my favourite bedside book, Sanctions, by Mgr. Ronald A. Knox. In the chapter * Against the Stream f that very question is discussed by an agnostic doctor who is a psycho-analyst, and by a Catholic and others. One of the characters, Lady Maud Sanquhar, has confessed her belief that Spiritualism provides positive evidence for immor- taüty. 4 There was an awkward pause. Most propie présent knew that Lady Maud had a weakness for Spiritualism, and also that ber bosband disapproved of it. It was not often that the influence o f these beîiefs made itself felt in public. At last the crisp voice of Dr. Donovan intervened : , f ** Of course, we don*t want to destroy any reasonable con viction that anyone has, We are out to reach the truth, not to obscure it. But for that very reason we are bound to attack every false bsas of belief, even though the belief itself should be true, E18] * A WARNING TO ÂLL MEDIUMS ' Nothing docs more harm, does it, than belief based on Wfong grounds t Well, what I mean to say is, we ottght îlot to assume the présence of any supematural agency in so-cailed 4 occult ' mamfestations untÜ we know more, a great deal more, about the secrets of the subconsdous, How do we know that persons présent at a séance, even if they are honestly trying to make their minds a blank, do not subconsciously project their own thoughts into the medium s1 . . 444 And so,” answered Lady Maud, u for the sake o f a scientific theory, you wouid take away from us what is to so many of us our only hope of seeing our dead again, the only thing that makes life worth living i I lost two brothers in the war, Dr. Donovan, and I should lose them again, this time irretrievably, if I could believe what you say.” 4 There was another pause. , . . Dr. Donovan was a kindly man, and felt incapable of answering the oütburst, Only Kaîocry at last found voice to speak : 144 We must not believe a lie, Lady Maud. We must not believe a lie, even if ail the Hght of our hopes dies with the dawning of the truth.” r That attitude of Lady Maud's was expressed by one of the witnesses for the defence in the recent trial of Mrs. Helen Duncan. She said : 4 Spiritualism is my religion, You can't trick me on these things. The whole of my life wouid feel it was at an end if I found I had been tricked* (Portsmouth Evening News, March 29,1944). To that witness the words also apply : we should not believe a lie. Now, modem Spiritualism, like Selfridge's Stores, was ushered into the world with a great trumpeting. Even from the first year of its coming into being, that is in 1848, the world was told that Spiritualism meant the4 dawning of a new era/ Leah Fox, who made this first great announcement, was followed by many others who also prodaimed a transformation of the earth ; but in spite of the echoing chorus in which Judge Edmonds and others of the early days took up the refrain of Leah Fox's anthem— only to befollowed in our own days by Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. Dennis Bradley and a host of unidentifiable 4 spirit guides 4—the nearest approach to a 4 trans formation ' is the latest type of 4 transfiguration séance ' to be witnessed— as the Spiritualist advertisements tell us— at Golders Green and Forest Lane, [ 1 9 ] SPERITÜÂLÏSM 4 BrilMant minds with hrilliant thoughts/ we were told, were * buming to givc utterance to earth/ And we wait in vain, A hundred years almost hâve passed since the first trumpetings of Spiritualisai sounded, and not a single * brîlliant thoughtt has reached m yet. As for the * brilHant minds/ well, Professor C. E. M . Joad disposes of them by saying : * One is driven to the conclusion that, even if ghosts hâve soûls, they certainly hâve no brains/ T h e 4 great and astounding manifestations * promised for 1855, for 1931, for 1926, hâve proved a failure. They hâve not materiahsed, So much for the trumpeted prophecies of their 4 New Révéla tion/ What are we to say of the private messages t Were I to give my personal opinion alone with regard to the value of private messages conveyed through professional médiums there would be the usual outcry of ‘ Roman CathoKc intolérancef and 4 Roman monopoly of miracles4 ; so, as a foundation for my own judgment, I quote here only the opinions and verdicts of authorities whom no Spirittialists can accuse of parti-pris, viz* non-Cathohc researchers in psychical studies, and SpirituaHsts themselves. Let me begin with the statements of the Rev, Stainton Moses, known also as ‘ M A ,, Oxon/ The Rev. Stainton Moses was for a while a clergyman of the Cfaurch of England, and an M A . of Oxford University. From the rime he became a convert to Spirituah'sm, through the phenomena of automatic writing, till his death he spent his days in '‘defence of his new belief, He was the first President of the London SpirituaHst Alliance, and he was for a number of years the éditer of Light, which daims to be (Mr, Barbanell must not take this teo much to heart) * the acknowledged représentative of caltivated and intelligent Spiritualism throughout the world, everywhere quoted and referred to as such/ The Rev. Mr, Moses wrote two important books : Spirit limJdty and Higher Aspects of Spiritualism. He himself dedares in his Spirit Idmtity that whereas he wrote previously ‘ for the unimtructed world ’ 4 here on the contrary I am speaking to the esoterk body * and * speaking only to suchf (p, 1). That is, he wrote his book for SpirituaHsts. Aaother important déclaration of his occurs in the préfacé (p, vi) of his second book, Higher Aspects .* ' I protest that Spiritual- M i, * * « is not the silly thing that its friends (alas !) too often ^ depict it as being/ 4 A WARNING TO ALL MEDIUMS 4 Now we hâve the reverend gentleman’s credentials : Church of England clergyman converted to Spiritualism ; a Master of Arts of the University of Oxford ; a zealous defender of the cause of Spiritualism, and 4 ail out 44 to purify the movement. And what has he to say with regard to these private 4 spirit messages 4 i He is discussing in Spirit Identity 4 The Nature of the Intelli gence 4 that provides the messages* He asks : 4 Is the Intelligence human i 4 and States that 4 Several suspicious circumstances combine to throw doubt upon particular cases/ 4 The free use of names great and honoured amongst men is one of the most suspicious*4 He adds : 4 Another cause of doubt is the extreme difficulty that is usually found in getting any facts precisely given, especially facts that are certainly external to the knowledge of the sitters 4 (p* 31). Let the enquirer who is anxious to know the fate of someone posted by the War Office as 4 missing 4 ponder those words. The medium does not know what the War Office does not know ; the enquirer herself does not know— therefore there is, on the admission of a leader of Spiritualist thought,4 extreme difficulty 4 in getting the information that is sought* Let ail persons who may be tempted to consult médiums as to the fate of their men-folk engaged in the war ponder also these further quotations î 4 Another cause which has strengthened the inhérent feeling of improbability with which most of us start, is the mass of contra dictions in the messages 4 (p* 35)* In his other book— Higher Aspects of Spiritualism— referring to public séances, he says the 4 spirits4 who manifest4 are beings who are not possessed of high moral consciousness* Whether they are instruments in the hands of more progressed intelligences or not, the fact remains that they can give no trustworthy informa tion 4 (p* 18)* Seventy pages further on he makes a more detailed charge against such4 messages4: 4 Furthermore, it is a common cause of complaint amongst us that the communications received * . * are of an unsatisfactory nature. It is said that they are frequently trivial, contradictory, foolish (if not worse), and not such as to command respect. . . * I am anxious not to overstate the argu ment. . . . Is it not so i I am disposed to think it is 4 (p* 88). Referring again to the public séances, M r. Moses adds, two pages further on : 4 A medium is a charlatan, an impostor, who produces [ 3i ] SPIRITUALISM one's grandmotber for fivc shillings» a n o to n s and elusive wild beast, ta be crushed and trampled ont 1 Yes, I am aware of it, Mme Ûtm lachrymae* It is for this reason that our drcles are crowded with phenomena at best equivocal, too often apparently or reaily frauduleat. It is for this reason that we hâve such cause to blush for the puerilities and Îmbeciliîies» the frauds and tricks that are perpetualîy being brought to light' (p. 90)* ftow Ê a CathoUc were to hâve made those statements ‘ off his own bat ' there would hâve arisen a chorus of protests in the Spiritualist press. There would hâve been no end to the questions in retort as to whether the author of the charges had ever been présent at a séance* etc.» etc.» etc, ; so how could he know anything about it i 4 Bigotry,' ‘ Intolérance,' 4 Methods of the Inquisi tion,' and the usual litany of abuse, I doubt if even a Catholic would refer to fraudulent médiums as * noxious and elusive wild beasts to be crushed and trampled ont/ Conan Doyle said of such médiums t 4 Every fake medium should get at least ten years in prison ' (Letter to Samrî Frikell : Spirit Médiums Exposed, p, 10), Nor îs the Rev, Stainton Moses alone in making such chapes and admissions, The Lyceum Marnai, which is the official text-book ‘ for use in Progressive Lyceums connected with Bfitish Spiritualistic Sodeties ' and which is published under the aeps of the British Spiritualists' Lyceum Union, wams the leamers that not a11 messages are to be trusted. In section 140» o n 4 Mediumship,' the Conductor of the Lyceum pute the question t 4 Has the medium any influence on the phenomena i ' ^ And the answer given is : ‘ Yes, every medium h » a perscmaHty more or less positive» and ail communications are cdoured more or less thereby ; subde dilferences in the «Eganism cause variety in the manifestations, Spirit power is îimited in expression by the organisai through which it works,' In answer to the question rDo médiums exhibit any pecuü- arityî'^the reply h t 4Yes» waywardness of charaeter, and a disposition to be te» easily influenced by surrounding dreum- or persons* but the broadest charity should be bestowed ugxm them as they are' often left in such a négative State as to bwooie the prey of conflicting influences,' la thenext section (§ 141), on 4 Spiritual Gifts,' which are , A® of Spirit Friends to prove their presence and it m asked ï ‘ Are ail Spirit messages to be relied 'A WARNING TO ALL MEDIUMS ' on i f To that the Lyceum answer in chorus : 4 No ; w e must test, prove, and try them in order to ascertain the truth.* Well, SpirituaHsts may be able to * test, prove and try * the lying messages given by médiums with regard tP those reported as 4 missing ' in this war, but for the life of me I can't see how they are to set about it, Even the editor of Psychic News admits that * The weli-known ' (the well-known, mark you) 4 spirit guides are unanimous in affirming that they are confronted with overwhelming difficulties in spirit communication these days/ and he adds that 4 In times of difficulty . . » nearly ail the odds are against successful spirit communication ' (Nov, 37,1943, P* 4)* To crown ail these damning admissions we hâve the statement o f 4 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle/ Manifesting from the spirit world on Tuesday, October 7,1930 (three months after he had 4 passed over '), through the mediumship of Mrs, Eileen Garrett,4 he * spoke for a long time with Mr, Harry Price at a séance held in the National Laboratory of Psychi- cal Research. In reply to the question, put by Mr. Price : 4 Is it possible for you to know if some of the médiums are genuine, or partly genuine, or some wholly fraudulent i 4 the doughty champion of Spiritualism replied : 4 There is not a medium in the world, from what I know now, that is able to get a clear ad mission into our life ' ÇLeaves from a Psychisfs Case-Bookt p. 113). With such admissions made by Spiritualists themselves there is, perhaps, scarcely need to add further evidence of the worthlessness of spirit messages, but two or three quotations from experienced psychical researchers may not corne amiss. First, there are the statements of Professor Sir William Barrett, who was one of the earlier Presidents of the Society for Psychical Research which was founded in 1882. Professor Barrett wrote a very interesting book entitled Psychi cal Research. In it he refers, regretfully, to 4 the impassihÜity of securing the complété passivity of the mind of the medium/ and to 4 the ail but total impossibility of transcending the limitations imposed by the mediunTs mental apparatus and intellectual equipment * (p, 240), 4 We must also allow iikewise/ he adds, 4 for the possibility, if not probability, of other still more baffling impediments, unimaginable by us in our ignorance of what the conditions are in the spirit-world * (p, 342), Professor James H, Hyslop, Ph,D,, L L JD., first President of the American Society for Psychical Research, a man who spent

[3 3 1 SPIRÏTUALISM tnany years in investigating Spiritualist phenomena, also refers to the ‘ baffiing impediments, unimaginable by us * of Sir William Barrett, only, after the fashion of Amerîcans who describe under- takers as * morridans/ he terms them, ponderously, * intercosmic obstacles/ He writes of * The triviality and confusion of the messages/ and goes on to say that : ' The limitations of the messages are due to the conditions affecting the possibility of any ceonmtmication at aU. It is an abnormal State in the living that conditions the access of knowledge from beyond, and there is evidence that similar difficultés often encounter the efforts of those who hâve passed before to penetrate the veîl. Besides there are probabiy intercosmic obstacles to ready communication, and when we add to these mamfold complications in the mental world affecting any access of outside influences at ail, we may well imagine that abnormal conditions on both sides would, Hke deliria, give us only fragmentary knowledge. A sériés of facts will make this cîear to ail who care to think * (Enigmas of Psychical Research, p, 388). ïhrofessor É. É. M . Joad, who has attehded séances held under test conditions with some of the most noted médiums— médiums whcse performances -hâve attracted the attention of learned men of to-day, asks in hîs book Guide to Modem Thought (p. 154) ; * Do the messages convey information which could not conceivably hâve been accessible to any person other than the person who bas " passed oyer n i It may be admitted at once that proof that sueh mfonnarion had in fact been conveyed would be difficuit to estabKsh/ s Regardmg ' the general nature of the communications received t o n ** spints ” purporting to describe the conditions under which tfaey eadst/ he says : * These hâve two general characteristics ; they are pktitudinous and trivial, and almost invariably they œproduce the general culture, outlook and ideas of the medium of those sittmg with the medium . . . they embody no other material other than what migfat hâve been supplied by the imagina tion of the living persons concemed * (pp. 155-156). . Tins disposition to be too easily mfluenced by surrounding cotmotaoce» or persons * is borne out by Continental Spiritualists a to Frau Maria Von Bergen, the représentative of Swedish Sfitetoahste, emphasised the point very strongly. ' The different sw it communications vary, espedally in these days, almost One messie contradicts another so directly at rimes ttet it ® impossible to harmonise thpm. Besides, we may never [ 3 4 ] * A WARNING TO ALL MEDIUMS # be abie to judge, most probably, how far the subconscious mind of the medium plays a part in these messages. . . . Hence the déplorable confusion, the agonising discord, and the tragic diver- sity of opinion that reign to-day/ Mme Thérèse Darel, of Geneva, one of * the most illustrions and greatest names in the study of Spiritualism/ also stresses this further point : 4 You hâve learnt by expérience/ she says, 4 that the dead are no different from what they were when they were alive . . . in their new condition they remain finite entities and, in conséquence, imperfect ; their knowledge is limited, as limited as are the possibilities extended to them of manifesting and estab- lishîng contact with the living ’ (Congress Report, p. 14). Here is the situation to-day : thousands of anxious, harassed, heartbroken women— mothers or wives or fiancées— are rushing to consult predatory, lying médiums, médiums who hâve to be warned that 4 truth is best in the end/ These anxious women, who know no better, seek from heartless harridans information as to their loved ones who are dead or mîssing, and that at a rime when prominent leaders of the Spiritualist movement feeî constrained to déclaré that the possibility of getting genuine and truthful information is well-nigh impossible. 4 In rimes of difficulty f— like the présent—4 nearly ail the odds are against successful spirit communication/ Strangest of ail, in a sense, is the fact that whilst these marvellous (s1) médiums profess to be able to give information about soldiers, sailors and airmen who are missing or dead they fail repeatedly to secure warnings from the 4 spirits * when the clients who consult them are from the police 1 So much for the situation in general ; let us now enter a little into detail.

[25] II

IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i

ÀT the second International Spirituaüst Congress, held in Geneva m 1913 (of which more will be saîd later), Mr* E* W* W allis, then édite» o f L ig h t, represented the London Spiritualists" Alliance* In Ms address on May 13 he said : * Spiritualism is the resuit of the action of beings from the next world (des entités de Vau-delty on men faere beîow (sur Thomme dfici-ba$) in their attempt to corne to his assistance* [I quote and translate from the full report, which was pubfisbed in French*] * The beings from the next world are neither angels nor devils, they are human beings (applause) ; consequently what they tel1 ns stands at the bar of our own judgment (doit être jugé par notre propre raison), Consequently it dépends upon m to dedde whether th« messages we rtceive from beyond the grave are true or not " (p* 183)* ?ery well, îet us put some of those messages at the bar of human tte so ù * We hâve seen in the preceding chapter suffirent to make us qwatkm the bona fiées of any medium* Spiritualists themselves hâve given us enough Justification for doubting the good faith of dte instruments through whom the messages are conveyed* I know perfectly well that I shall be accused of bigotry for attaŒmg Spiritualism* I sh all be told that it is most unchristian to ated anybodyfs rdigious belief* But : Is S piritualism a w& ig io n i ^ SpMtuaMsm Has h em offered to the world as a religion, a ' New Hcvttâtk»/ Not onîy îs it to be considered a religion but the d an » are advanced for it that it is to be the handmaid of Christian- fhough some Spiritualists go so far as to assert that it is to supplans Chrisùanity and be the * Universal Religion*" < -Jl the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who described it as The New Révélation "—a very brave title to use sedng that

m IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGIONS* there is notihing new in attempting to make contact with the dead, and that the révélations of Spiritualisai do not contain a single iota of crédible information beyond the fact that the soûl survives after the death of the body : we are presented instead with the ancient pagan ideas of Reincarnation, or else with a description of a materialised heaven that few people would want to inhabit* T he Lyceum Marnai issued by the British Spiritualists' Lyceum Union seems to be undecided as to what form of religion Spiritualism shall be* It has sections bearing the headings 4 The Religion of Humanity ' (an idea common with some continental Spiritualists) ; 4 The Religion of Health ' (in common with Nudists and the Maadaznan believers) ; 4 The Religion of Use ' (or the expansion of Science for the benefit of society)* Spiritualist weekly publications advertise 4 Sunday Services ' by the score, and call theîr meeting-places 4 churches ' or (after the French and Belgian style) ' temples/ So it rrmst be a Religion* But isiti One after another of the accredited leaders of Spiritualism tells us that it îs a religion, but a religion without dogmas or creeds,1 Of course the obvious retort to that statement is the question : Can there be any religion without dogma or creed i A nd the answer is : No. If #e ask Spiritualists does not their religion teach anything, they reply at once : Of course it does ; it teaches the spirituality of the soûl, its immortality, and the possibiüty of communicating with it after death. There, straightaway, you hâve * dogma '—4 dogma * means 4 what is held/ ' what is believed/ * tenet/ When the Spiritualist says he has no creed, he again betrays his ignorance of the meaning of the words he uses. A 4 creed ' merely means * an expression of one's beliefs/ So when we find in the Lyceum Marnai (§ 136) : 4 What is the creed of Spiritual ism i 4 followed by the answer : 4 Spiritualists hâve no creed, but mostly unité in affirmdhg the following simple summary of principles : ' The Fatherhood of God. The Brotherhood of Man* The Immortality of the Soûl, and its personal characteristics*

1 Psychic News pritited in a panel over the heading of its leading article : * “ Our allegiance is not to a Creed, not to a Book, not to a Church, but to the Great Spirit of Life and to His etemal natural laws.”—A spirit message.* [ 2 7 ] SPIRITUALISM The Proven Facts of Communion between departed Human Spirite and Mortals. Personal Responsibiüty, with Compensation and Rétribu tion hereafter for ail the good or evil deeds done here. And a path of Eternal Progress open to every human soûl that wills to tread it by the path of eternal good '—there you hâve a creed. Prefix the words t * I believe in * to each of those statements, or articles, and you hâve the Spiritualists* creed. Hence ail the talk of religion without dogmas and without a

, , to say is that they hâve no true Christian bdiefs. Those who do accept Spiritualism as a religion deny the Divinity of Christ and reject nearly ail His teaching : original a n J the need for repentance ; the Atonement ; the value of Christ's death on Calvary ; His Church and His sacramental System . Let us take, for example, the anti-Christian ideas set forth by some of the English-speaîdng leaders or authorities of Spiritualism. Despite the fact that the New Testament is full of references to the Fall of Man through the original sin of our first parents, We find the Rev* William Stainton Moses, formerly a clergyman of the Church of England, defying the Sacred Scriptures and dedarmg that Spiritualiste * reject as a baseless figment the story of â fall from primaeval innocence and perfection * * * in the persan of Adam and Eve * (Higher A spects, p, 62). Hence if there was no Fall of Man there was no need for the Rédemption and Atonement by our Saviour Jésus Christ* The Agony of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, His trial before Annas and Caiaphas and Pilate and Herod, His suffering at the hands of the myrmidons of ail these four—buffeting, mockery, scpurgmg, crowning with thoms—His Via Dolorosa to Calvary wità the dimax of His Crucifixion * . * ail this was, in the üpittiQiï of thousands of Spintualists, sheer unnecessary sufferinn ætm a vrxstt* n f Kf» J &

[28] IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION f described as 4 the highest form of Protestantism* (D euxièm e Congrès Spirite Universel, p. 153). These people, then, would share with Mr. H. G, Wells the idea that the Cross of Christ is a 4 shameless Symbol * ; if not shameless, at least useless and unmeaning. To such the lesson of the suprême sacrifice of Jésus Christ on Calvary is of little account. They could scarcely be expected to understand that in His crucifixion Jésus exemplified His own saying : 4 Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friend/ They seem not to réalisé that the Cross of Christ has been adopted ever since, even in this Protestant country, as the symbol (surely not a 4 shameless Symbol/ Mr. Wells f) of suprême sacrifice—hence the Victoria Cross, the Royal Red Cross, the Military Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross—and the little wooden crosses on the graves of Fianders, France, Gallipoli, Mesopotamia (in the last war), and El Alamein, Tobruk, and in Tunis, Sicily, Burma and a dozen other places in this war. CcuTt these people see that Calvary counts i Or would they hâve the little wooden crosses, so pathetic, so revealing, replaced by stakes as though to mark the burial place of vampires i Readers who profess to be true Christians and belîevers in the Bible are asked to compare the statements of Spiritualist authorities with what they know to be the traditional Christian teaching : 4 The miracles (so-called) that attest the truth of the Bible story in the Old and New Testaments are well-nigh worthless to sciencef (H igker A spects, p. 72-73). 4 Man can hâve no saviour outside himseîff (H igher A sp ects, P* 78)* . . Spiritualism 4 déniés the immoral and soul-corrupting doctrme of any vicarious atonements for sin, and on the testimony of millions of immortal spirits, solemnly affirms that every guilty soûl must arise and become its own saviour * (Lyceum Marnai, § 136). 4 There can be no miracle or supernatural event, as law reigns suprême in the spiritual as well as in the physical realm * (Lyceum Marnai, § 138). Spiritualism 4 asks no pardon for its sins * (Lyceum Marnai, § 14a)* As a final contrast between the dogmas of Spiritualism and those of true Christianity let me oppose two passages—one from the New Testament and one from The Letters of a Living Dead 29] SPIRITDALISM Mon* This bttter book, by the way, bas beeü descfibed as the best of ail spirît communications. * And when they were corne to the place which is called Calvary, they crucifié Him there ; and the robbers, one on the right hând and the otfaer on the left * * . and one of the robbers who were hanged bl^phemed Him* saying î If Thou be the Christ* save Thyself and us. * But the other answering, rebuked him, saying : Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art under the same condemnation. And we indeed jusdy* for we receive the due reward of our deeds \ but this man hath doue no evil. * And he said to Jésus : Lord, remember me when Thou shalt corne into Thy Kangdom. * And Jésus said to him ; Amen, I say to thee, this day shalt thou be with Me in paradise ' (St. Luke xxiii, 33-43) « That incident put the crowning touch to the lesson contained in the parable of the Prodigal Son. It has proved an incentive to final repentance for possibly millions of sinners. In coatrast, what do aîleged spirit-messages tell us i * Bm are of dmth^bêd rèpentatice and its after-harvest of morbid memorfes. It is better to go into etemity with one's Karmic burdern bravely carried upon the back rather than slink through the back door of hell in the stockinged feet of a sorry cowardice * (Lêtters of a Living Dead Man), So Jésus Christ, for these Spiritualists, ceases to be the lovùag Redeemer. His Crucifixion toas 4 monstrous * waste of . life. Hts miracles, to which He appealed so frequently, coünt for acrtMng. Final repentance is useless, since sin is only a 4 Karmic burden * to be4 bravely carried upon the back/ And this Spirittialism is the Key to the Bible and the Handmaid of Chriatiaoity f This book Is not intended to be a stüdy in Psychical Research, but to examination of the claims of Sptritualism viewed especially tn the hght of the teachings of accredited Spiritualists. Unfortuaately Sptritualism is accepted by thousands in this e&antry as a definite form of religion. Whether it should be so deagnated formed a very hotly debated question at the inter- HitÉmal Spirituaîist Congress held in Geneva in 1913. The full reçcrt of that Congress makes very curious reading. For one if shows how markedly insular and provincial is the attitude ù i Ettgîssh Spiritualists. Th® mstdafity of the peuple of Bngland—I speak not only of [*>J 1S SPIRITUALISM A RELIGIONS1 the masses, or the * bourgeoisie/ or 4 the mao in the Street is sometimes astounding, In matters affecting religion it would seem to be the obstacle to the conversion of England, To the mind of the writer the limit was reached on an occasion when, in Ramsey, I.O.M., a revivalist preacher entered on a discussion regarding the Holy Eucharist, An attempt was made to try to bring home to him the différence between two Greek words crscp^, and used in regard to the doctrine of the Real Presence, The effort was fruîtless : the good revivalist promptly retorted that there was no need to quote any foreign languages, as * the Bible came down from heaven written in English,* I bade him good-night, and thenceforth talked with him no more, My one reflection was : * God help the poor soûls left to the care of such masters in Israël.* But to apply the lesson, One would expect that since the Fox happenings at Hydesville in 1848 the teachings of Spiritualism would hâve been synthesisied by now. Instead, one finds the most hopeless confusion as to the value and aim of Spiritualism. It would seem that the leaders of the movement themselves realised the need for a definite platform, for they held their * Second Universal Spiritist Congress * in Geneva in 1913 to discuss this very question, There were présent at the Congress their most prominent members from England, France, Switaerland, Holland, Spain, the U.S.A., Braail, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, Monaco, Portugal, Croatia, Germany, Canada and Austria. In addition to two official représentatives from Belgium, M, le Chevalier le Clément de St. Marcq represented his own unofîidai following, He daimed to represent Belgian Spiritualists, despite the fact that 35 out of 37 Fédérations Spirites of Belgium disowned him because of his obscene and blasphemous brochure Histoire de VEuchar- istie. There was some friction over his presence, but harmony was restored. Then M. Léon Denis (France), one of the three acting Presi dents, announced the subject for the first day's debate i * The Rôle of Spiritualism in the Religious Evolution of Humanity,* The subject was divided into three questions for discussion : 1, Is Spiritualism the universal scientific religion i 3. What connection or relation is there between Spiritualism and the other existing religions of the day i 3. Can Spiritualism develop into a mode of worship 4 [313 SPIRITUALISME There were other questions for discussion on other days of the Congress sittings, but they do not concem us in this chapter, The debate realiy developed into trying to décidé _ whether Spiritualism was a religion at ail, To the non-Spiritualist it seems surely strange that such a question should need discussion after three-quarters of a century. The early Christians did not wait nearly a century to find out whether their new faith was a religion or not. Not only did they know it before they were baptised, but the Jewish priests knew it and the pagan emperors of Rome knew it* It was precisely because it was a new religion, a religion that was intolérant of any other religion, that it was proscribed and its adhérents were persecuted and put to death. Hence wfaen we find that the members of the Congress could not décidé on the question Catholics may be excused if they refuse to accept it as such. The most that can be said for it is that it is an attempt to prove, by démonstration, the truth of a dogma which Christianity bas aiways taught, vis. that there is a life after death. That view is upheid also by the editor of The Occult Review, Commenting on the renewed debate in Light as to 4 whether Spiritualism is a religion/ he says : 4 The admitted business of Spiritualism being to demonstrate the life of the soûl after death, if it does succeed in this, it is a priceless adjunct to religion, but it is not religion itself, the concem of which is not evidence of immortality but evidence that there is a possible and attainable State of union between man and God ' (Occult Review, Jan. 1917). It wouM take far too long to summarise ail the views expressed at the Congress. One can give a translation of only some of them. The first speaker was Mme Darel, of Geneva. She said ï 4 If Spiritualism is to be a religion, who are going to bé the means of révélation of the new religion f According to you, it will be the spirits of the dead, Now, ail your expérience has taught you that the dead are not any way different from what they were when they were on earth* . . . The dead in their new conditions are finite mtittes, and coosequenily they are imperfect ; their knowledge m limitéei» and so are the possibilités limited of their getting into communication with us ' (p. 14). She goes on to say that the messages they give are of îittîe value, with no guarantee that they do corne from the dead. 4 It is useless, ladies and gentlemen, to tsk them to give proofe of their identity/ (Poor Sir Oliver and pocar Sir Arthur I) * You wish to found a Scientific Religion ; let mepropeseinstead44 The Scientific Study of Spirit Phenomena.” * The omet speaker was a Jewish rabbi, M, Alfred Bénésech. He [33] IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i admitted that we can believe in a future life without becoming Spiritualists. He gave as a reason for the opposition of Christian Churches to Spiritualism the texts of the Bible that condemn necromancy* But he, good Jew, will accept in the Bible only what suits him : 4 If, some three thousand years ago, communication between the living and the dead was forbidden, well, I, for my part, do not hold myself bound to obey * (p. 30), Laughter greeted his sally of contemptuous reference to the * Church’s monopoly of miracles " at Lourdes and La Salette. He ended by appealing for Spiritualism to maintain at ail times' a critical and scientific character. The rabbi was followed by a Frenchman, M . Vallabrègue. * Every religious founder is a medium* Whether we like it or not, the Sacred Scriptures are spirit writings/ Confucius, Mahomet, St* Joan of Arc, ail owe their influence to Spiritualism* ' Can Spiritualism be the universal scientific religion i The universal religion will be Christianity, but this Christianity will be Spiritualist/ After a eulogy of the 4 civiüsing benefits f of Christian Rome with 4 its miracles of love and prayer and the incomparable lives of its saints/ he goes on to preach a doctrine of 4 Deliverance, Fraternity, Equality, Spiritual Life— the Kingdom of Heaven/ He seems not to hâve read the words : 4 Blessed are they that hâve not seen and hâve believed/ for he adds ; 4 Thanks to Spiritualism it is no longer Faith and Hope that open the gates of heaven, but Science and Certitude* * * . Spiritualism is scientific and it is re ligions* . . * H ow could any man’s soûl be other than penetrated by the highest religious feeling when he has constant proof that the dear dead he thought were lost for ever still live, are there beyond, speak to him, prove their identity in so many different ways, whisper words that deceive not, give irréfutable proofs and attest the perpetuity of existence." (Mme Darel must hâve laughed scornfully, if silently, at this*) Finally, after contra- dicting himself several times over, our good M* Vallabrègue ended up on a note one suspected from the beginning as the dominant : 4 The Church is dead. What we want now is the Church of Humanity/ (Applause.) Knowing something of the character and history of the next speaker, I can imagine how he must hâve chuckled to himself at the effusive déclamation of M* Vallabrègue. Right from the outset M. le Chevalier le Clément de St. Marcq rises suprême over the man-in-the-street for whom Christ came. St* Marcq [33] c SPIRITUALISM bas atl îhe assuredness of the esoteric, the contempt of the Initiate far the uninitiated, coupled with a scorn of Christianity born of inteilectual pride. * Man is content with the inferior food of religions belief because the worîd in which he Hves is incapable of providîng hîm with anything more solid, « , » Faith, that little night-Kght so precious in days gone by because our ancestors had no other light to enlighten their way in the dark shadows of the past. . . « Spiritualism is to replace ail beüefs. ♦ , . In its pro gressive and limitless march it has against it the Priest ; for it, the People. . . , What brought about the tremendous transformation of primitive, revolutionary and spiritualist Christianity into a sub- mîssive, conservative, Christ-worshipping Catholidsm was the suppression of the Agape . * » and the substitution of the Mass . . . the growing Catholic Church replaced in power, behind the Cross, the infernal band of dominating priests. * . . Spiritualism provides the world with a universal scientific religion ; but it lays stress as well on the divine right of the People ; it consecrates triumphant democracy in Humanity one and indivisible/ AU this and much more, front a man whose writings 4 under spirit guidance 4 dare not be published in this country, M . Gabriel Delanne saîd there were too many religions already, 4 Spiritîsm makes no philosophie spéculations ; it invents nothing ; it merely proves. . . . It has no need of priests ; no need of any form of worship/ One wonders what the National Spiritualists4 Union and the London Spiritualists4 AlHance would reply to that, The uselessness of expecting religious teaching of any definite sort from the dead is because 4 whatever spirit of the dead you evoke» whatever religious dénomination he belonged to in life, his attitude post mortem is always the same, provîded only he did gaodS Thus M . Delanne, who, by the way, is a re-incarnationist and a believer in the law of Karma. Âaother re-incamationist, M. Phiüippe, stated bluntly and firmly ; 4 Strictly speaking, Spiritualism cannot be a religion. . „ . Some of you say that Spiritualism has corne to confirm other reJMons. AËow me to tell you—-timidly, in face of the statements maoe to this effect that I Hstened to yesterday— that I reject that affirmation. . . . We do not know the true religion ; or, rather, there is no need for such a religion, . . . I conclude by stating, with emphasis ; No, Spiritualism is not ; no, Spiritualism never wili be ; no, Spiritualism ought not to be a religion/ (Loud applatise.) At last there was an EngUsh speaker, Mr. Hanson Hey, of the E 34 3 IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i National Spiritualists* Union, England. Mr. Hey gave expression to vague Pantheism, and recited a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer that only fell short of Mrs. Eddy's for bathos. * There is too much talk about Saviours and intercession. The truth is that each man is as near to the heart of God as any other . . . each man must find the way to God by himself/ One must pass over a number of addresses, some of which were mere rhapsodies of Positivism or Pantheism. The next speaker calling for attention was Mynheer Beversluis, a minister of the Reformed Dutch Church. Mynheer's address was an ' apologia pro religione sua/ Once he believed in strict Calvinism. Then philosophy and science seemed to him to be in conflict with religion. Whilst distressed with doubts he met a friend who introduced him to Spiritualism. ' I thank God that this friend led me to Spiritualism, although he himself abandoned it later, and declared that it was a deceit of the devil. . . . Once I believed that Jésus was the Second Person of the Trinity, born supernaturally. . ♦ . Now I recognise in Him the suprême example for ail men. . . . Once I believed in the existence of the devil, the eternal enemy of God and of His elect ; now I know he does not exist. . . . Once I believed in a Heaven of infinité and indescribable happiness prepared for the elect ; and I know there is an infinité spiritual world consisting of innumerable spheres, of dark spheres for impure spirits, of shadowy spheres for repentant spirits, of spheres of light for purified spirits. . . . It is blasphemy to call Spiritualism a deceit of the devil ; rather it is the dogmas of the various religions that are such/ There will be no résurrection of the body. The Bible has no value : 4 The word of God is given to us in the communications of happy spirits . . . rather than in the writings of unknown men who lived on earth many centuries ago/ And yet, according to some of the speakers, e.g., M.Vallabrègue, the Bible was ail written under spirit-guidance. The height of absurdity was reached by an Italian delegate, Captain Volpi. This enthusiastic speaker acclaimed Spiritualism as 'The Universal Religion without Priesthood and without Worship/ He based his convictions on ' a book dictated by Jésus Himself to the medium, Madame X., which complétés the work of Allan Kardec, and gives us definitively the Universal Religion. . . . Jésus never pretended at any time that He was God , . . * but declared that * from time immémorial divine worship has been a mixture of superstitions dévotions and lying/ £ 35 I SPIRITUALISM M r. E. W. Wallis, then editor of Light : 4 Spiritualism is, to ray mind, the highest form of Protestantism ’ (p. 153)* ^ By its leaders Spiritualism is declared to be at once : impossible as a religion ; the perfection of Christianity ; the utdîying element of ail existing religions ; the only sdentific religion ; the one hope of humanity ; the Universal Religion ; mere scientific investiga tion, and yet not scientific at ail because it deals with a subject outside the realms of science* It is trustworthy because scientific ; it is not trustworthy because the dead know no better than ourselves* It is dogmatic, yet it has no doctrines* It is the light of the world, yet ail con fusion. It has a positive message, yet 4 the communications vary almost inftruteîy.' The dear dead speak to us, yet 4 it is useless to ask them to give proofs of their identity.’ It présents us with certitude, yet * we shall never know with certainty what part the unconsdous mind of the sitters may hâve in the communications.’ It is perfect Christianity, yet Christianity is the devil. And there is no devil* It is, in fine, a Babel of confiicting tongues* Nearly twenty years later—-in June 1932, to be exact— the Daily Mail publîshed a two-column article purporting to présent the findings o f a committee of ciergymen that had been * almost continuously in session ’ from January 1931. This committee busied itselt with 4 the growth of Spiritualism and whither it is leading us.’ The whole article had a two-column wide banner- heading : S peritüalism as K ey to the B ible, with a sub-heading 4 Clatm that it is aliy of the Churches.’ Further down the first column came a secondary heading which prefaced the report of the committee’s secretary :

Clergy’s Inquiry Is Spiritualism a M ain Part of C hristianity i The reply to that inquiry was very vague. The daim was made in the report that : * To a distracted and profoundly materialistic •world Spiritualism has corne to show that the teaching of the Founder of Christianity is really true.* Well, surely, no Christian needs any help from Spiritualism to enabie him to beîieve that. At die meeting, held in Ail Soûls’ Church Room, Langham Place, where the committee was inaugurated, the main address was that of the Rev. G. Vale Owen. Mr. Owen was not présent in person, so his address was read on his behalf. 4 The Rev* G* Vale Owen refexred to the current issue of the C?6] 1S SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i Church of England Newspaper in which the Bishop of Ripon expressed the view that44 at any moment the Christian Church may be faced by one of her great historié opportunities/' 4 44 The great historié opportunity has been with us for the last half century, and the Church has turned a deaf ear and bhnded vision upon it because it is new ; in other words, unorthodox and therefore not respectable/' said Mr* Vale Owen, 4 44 You will hâve to throw your orthodox theology into the melting pot and re-fashion it anew. For instance, the Christ of our orthodox formulae will disappear and there will arise another conception of Him of mueh greater majesty, more lovely and more real than the conception we hâve been given of Him in our creeds and articles ' (Liverpool Daily Post, Jan, 16, 1931), One naturally asks, what greater majesty could be given to Christ than that contained in the Nicene Creed : 4 God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father ; by whom ail things were made, Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven * i What 4 greater majesty ' is accorded to Him by denying that He is God-Incarnate equal to the Father and the Holy Ghost i Is it adding to His majesty to place Him on a level with Mahomet, Confucius or Buddha 4 Is it not rather a blasphemous dérision of His majesty to put Him as one who rariks with such Lyceum Marnai4 canonised saints as Sappho, Aspasia, Shelley and Thomas Paine ' i (.Lyceum Manual, § 145), 4 Oh, but a Christ44 more lovely/' ' Now, did the Rev* G. Vale Owen really believe that in deposing Jésus Christ as the Redeemer of the world, the Victim ôf Calvary, he was presenting the world, in the name of Spiritualisme vrith a 4 lovelier ' and more loveable figure i The honesty and mentality of a man who could recite the Nicene Creed in his church Sunday after Sunday, and yet deny on Spiritualistic platforms, and to the larger public of the Press, the Divinity of Christ is something beyond reasonable com préhension* And that point is one that gives the hall-mark of the evil nature of Spiritualism— its attack, in many cases a savage attack, on the Personality and Divinity of Jésus Christ* Thus stamped it betrays the place of its origin» Mr* Vale Owen might well say, at the close of his address, that the change in our valuation of Jésus Christ through the adoption

[ 3 7 3 SPIRITUALISM of the Spiritualise valuation would mean * going through a bit of mental hell/ Who wants to go through such 4 mental hell ' to please a man who puts his own ideas about life after death above the teaching of Our Saviour Jésus Christ ( Jésus Christ said definitely that there would be no marrying or giving in marriage in heaven. This statement is recorded in thrm of the four Gospels. But Mr. Vale Owen, having been through his * mental hell/ knew better ; and so he informed the world that his daughter Ruby, who died v/hen a few months old, had grown to be a beautifuî angel, had married, and was now teachmg her children to sing in the heavenly choir ! And that is the sort of teaching our English and American Spiritualists expect us to b'elieve. When ministers of a Christian Church can adopt that attitude we need not be at ail surprised to find Mr. Ernest W, Oaten, * one of the world leaders of Spiritualism/ being reported as saying î 4 Spiritualism is leading to individualism in religion and the break~up of authoritative churches * (Daily Mail, June 17, 193a). Surely Mr. E. W. Oaten behes his position as one of the world leaders of Spiritualism by such a display of ignorance. * ladividualtsm in religion * had a really good send-off when Luther declared and proclaimed the Protestant principle of Private Judgment, which was some time before 1848. Ah, but * it is leading to the break-up of authoritative churches * 1 ï&iti There is only one authoritative Church, the Catholic Church. " And that is not breaking up. We hâve heard that story from Spiritualists for close on a htmdred years ; but the Catholic Church still présents to the world a solid organisation that many fear and many respect. Even Hitler (X Write this in December 1943), despite the fact that Italy has deserted him, and that German troops are in Rome, has so far not dared to treat the tiny prmcipality of the Vatican State as he treated Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway. He knows he has to respect the neutrality of the Vatican. And the Vatican represents the Catholic Church. M r. Oaten is not alone amongst the prophets who hâve foreseen the destruction of the Catholic Church. From even Italy the Mme cry has gone forth. In Lace e Ombra, September 1916, there was pubKshed a diary of spirit-messages which contained a [38] 1S SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION î1 more emphatic prophecy than that of Mr, Oaten : “ Lo Spiritismo conquisterà le vostre scuole, le vostre cattedre, le vostre accademie + . . conquisterà anche la Chiesa *— Catholic schools, cathedrals, universities, even the Catholic Church herself were to be overcome, vanquished, destroyed by Spiritualism. Well, Nero thought to destroy the Church ; Arius thought it ; Luther thought it ; Henry VIII and Bloody Queen Bess thought it— and now a few Spiritualists who imagine themseives to be big noises think it ; 1 Lo Spiritismo conquisterà anche la Chiesa/ declared the spirits themseives, "L’Eglise est morte— The Church is dead/ said M. Albin Vallabrègue at the Geneva Congress (p. 27), " Sa destinée est de disparaître/ declared the erotomane St, Marcq. One after another Spiritualists in England, in North and South America, in various countries of Europe hâve repeated the parrot- cry: Spiritualism will dominate the world. Speaking of the heresies that hâve seemed to threaten the existence of the Catholic Church in the long course of her history a man of saner vision wrote these words : " To hâve fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historié path of Christendom— that would indeed hâve been simple. It is aiways simple to fall ; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands. To hâve fallen into any one of the fads from Gnosticism to Christian Science would indeed hâve been obvious and tame. But to hâve avoided them ail has been one whirling adventure ; and in my vision the heavenly chariot Aies thundering through the âges, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling but erect ’ (G. K. C, in Orthodoxy, p , 185). This threat to the Catholic Church is held as a bogey before us because of a " New Révélation/ as Conan Doyle called it— not a new Révélation by Almighty God, but a new message from a dubious, unidentifiable, unhistoric spirit. It really is a bit tiresome to hâve ail these occult movements thrust upon our notice as something new. We hâve had Mme Blavatsky's " New Theosophy ’ ; Sir Oliver Lodge’s ‘ New Cate- chism ’ ; Lady Emily Lutyens’ " New Gospel ’ ; the Faithists’ * New Bible for a new Cycle ’ ; the new System of Hatha Yoga of Dr. O. Z» Ha’nish j the " New Révélation ’ of Conan Doyle— and they are ail, oh I so old and so lifeless ; so old that they are dead. SPIRITUALISME And the Catholic Church is so alive. The strangest thing about ail these * New * movements is that they base their newness on 4 the Wîsdom of the Ancients * : on Zorc&strianism, early Buddhism, Brahminic tantras, Gnostidsm and the Old Testament, How well St, PauPs words apply to those modem seekers after aîiqmd novi, somethiag new ; how fittingly the Catholic Church can address them to Spiritualists, Faithists, Theosophists, foi- lowers of the Kosmon Light and the rest : 4 Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in ail things you are too superstitious, For passing by and seeing your idols, I found an altar also on whîch was written To the ünknown G od, What, therefore, you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you * (Acts xvii, 23-23). And what the Catholic Church teaches is good, sound common seose. Throughout these articles only the views of non-Catholics hâve been quoted, Thus the charge of Catholic préjudice has been obviated, Let us read what another non-Catholic has to say about the Catholic faith. / Notwithstanding the obstinate preference the 44 bulk of man- Mnd ” always show for demonstrable errors over undeniable pR»fs, the number of persons is daily increasing who hâve begun to put a value upon mental coherency and to appredate the charm of a lexical position, 4 It was common taîk at one time to express astonishment at the extending influence of the Church of Rome, and to wonder how p®ople who went about unaccompanied by Keepers could submit their reason to the Papacy. , . , It used to be thought a sufficient explaaation to say either that the man was an ass or that it was ail those Ritualists,' Since those words were written by Mr. Augustine Birrell in Ms essay ^4 The Via Media ' many more men of talent, unaccompanied by Keepers, hâve submitted to Rome— Papini, Joergensen, Alfred Noyés, Arnold Luira, Ronald Knox, G, K, Chesterton, Christopher Lawson, Jacques Maritain, Douglas WoodrufF, Henri Ghéon, George Glasgow and a thousand other me» of hi^fa attainments. But, as Augustine Birrell goes on to say ï * It is not the Roman ritual, however splendid, nor her cérémonial, however spirituaily significant * (though this it was, the présent writer submits, that brought the noted Satanist U o ] IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i Huysmans into the Church) * nor her System of doctrine, as well arranged as Roman law and as subtle as Greek philosophy, that makes Romanists nowadays. 4 It is when a person of religions spirit and strong convictions as to the truth and importance of certain dogmas— few in number it may be ; perhaps only one, the Being of God— first becomes fnîly alive to the tendency and direction of the most active opinions of the day, when, his alarm quickening his insight, he reads as it were between the lines of books, magazines and newspapers ; when, struck with a sudden trépidation, he asks, “ Where is this to stop i How can I, to the extent of my poor ability, help to stem this tide of opinion which daily increases its volume and floods new territory i n— then it is that the Church of Rome stretches out her arms and seems to say ; “ Quarrel not with your destiny, which is to become a Catholic. You may see difficulties and you may hâve doubts. They abound everywhere. You will never get rid of them. But I, and I alone, hâve never coquetted with the spirit of the âge* I, and I alone, hâve never submitted my creeds to be overruled by infidels. Join me, acknowledge my authority, and you need dread no side attack and fear no charge of inconsistency. Succeed finally I must, but even were I to fail, yours would be the satisfaction of knowing that you had never held an opinion, used an argument, or said a word, that could fairly hâve served the purpose of your triumphant enemy/f 4 At such a crisis as this in a man's life, he does not ask himself, How little can I believe i With how few miracles can I get off i _he demands sound armour, sharp weapons, and, above ail, firm ground to stand on— a good footing for his faith— and these he is apt to fancy he can get from Rome alone. * No doubt he has to pay for them, but the charm of the Church of Rome is this ; when you hâve paid your price you get your goods—-a neat assortment of cohérent, interdependent, logical opinions/ . Apply these words of a non-Catholic to Spiritualism. Can Spiritualism truthfully say it has never ' coquetted with the spirit of the âge ' with its changes from 4 astral body ' to ethereal sub stance ' and * ectoplasm ’ i Can Spiritualism maintain that it has * never held an opinion, used an argument, or said a word that could fairly hâve served the purpose of the enemy/ with its contradictory teachings of being Christian and denying the Atonement ; of being a religion and not being one ? of being [41] SPIRITUALÏSM Theosophicaî and mot Theosophicaî ; of being backed by the Bible and denying tbe value of the Bible i Does Spiritualism, in tbe face of its multiplied contradictions betrween Engiish, American and Continental beliefs présent * a neat assortment of cohérent,^interdependent, logical opinions*?' The price you pay for admission to the Church of Rome means the keeping of the Ten Commandments; humility of intellect; and possibly the loss of some friends, But having paid the price you get the goods— and they are good. Tour dead you leave in the Hands of God, knowing that He is infinitely merdfuî, infinitely forgiving and infinitely good, Whilst Christianity in general is the object of attack by many îeading Spiritualists, it is the Catholic Church in particular which cornes in for the bulk of their abuse, T h e reason for îhis is obvions : the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church aîone condemns Spiritualism outright. Other Christian bodies may coquette with it ; her attitude remains unchanged and adamant. Professer C. E, M , Joad, in his Guide to Modem Thought (p, 148), remarks on the merely half-hearted way in which other reügious bodies frown on Spiritualism, adding * the Catholics, as usual, providing an exception to the prevailing anæmia of religions conviction by downright denunciation of intercourse with what they do not hesitate to call evil spirits and even démons and demis.* What else can Catholics beîieve it to be when it can lead so many to abandon the true, historié Christian faith in Jésus Christ as the Divine Redeemer, and can even prompt a Lyceum leader to refer to the Almighty (as he did in a letter to the présent writer) as 4 that hydra-headed monster called the Christian God.* > Is this the * beautiful and lofty * teaching 1 that cornes from the bigher spiritual sources * that Lady Doyle referred to in the Sunday Dispatch i She added : * If ail the fine sermons I hâve ever heard were put together they could not compare with the wonder of one of the marvellous discourses I hâve heard from the bigher Spîrit people ' (Sunday Dispatch, Jan. n , 1931), 4 Beautiful and lofty *—with Jésus Christ no longer our Re deemer, and * a hyçira-headed monster * as the description of Almighty God ! Be the aheged spirit utterances * beautiful and lofty ’ or not we are entitled to ask : W h y should Spiritualism be looked upon A S à R E L IG IO N i [ 4 3 ] IS SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION i Spiritualiste are almost unanimous in declaring that Spiritualism bas no creed, no dogmas, no form of worship. If ît has none o f these things it cannot be a religion. That fact was pointed ont very emphatically at the Geneva Congress, It remains the professed attitide of Psychic News. Therefore, to attack Spiritualism by exposing its frauds, its chicanery, its lying messages, does not constitute an attack on anyone's religiousbeliefs, What Spiritualists fail to réalisé is that t h e s a m e p h e n o m e n a WHICH THEY CLAIM TO OBTAIN BY INTRODUCING A PSEUDO-RE- ilGious ATMOSPHERE (singing * Nearer, my God, to Thee f and 4 Onward, Christian Soldiers 0 c a n b e o b t a i n e d a n d h â v e BEEN OBTAINED WITHOUT THE INTRODUCTION OF ANY RELIGIOUS ELEMENT. Dr. Schrenck-Notging secured his alleged matérialisations with Eva C. and Stanislawa P. independently of any suggestion of religion at his séances, W hat is more, he stressed that point himself in his book Matérialisations phânomene. D r, Carlo Akona also calls attention to the fact, and adds : 4 Che sia possibile ottenere fenomene medianici di grande intensità senza le preghiere, i canti, le animate conversagioni sopra suggetti mistici era da molti anni dimostrato ~ * It was proved years ago that it is possible to obtain mediumistic phenomena of great power without prayers, hymns, or lively discussions on mystical subjects/ Mr. Harry Price, Founder and Director of the National Labora- tory of Psychical Research, provides supplementary confirmation of multiform phenomena obtained without any religions element being even suggested. In his book Leaves from a Psychisfs Case-Book he gives interesting accounts of séances held with the Schneider brothers (Rudi and Willy) in Munich, Braunau and London, At these séances instead of hymns and prayers we read of noise, chatter, music-hall songs and folk-sings, with a good chorus, I quote from M r. Price’s illuminating volume, At Munich : 4 The first portion of the sitting was not very successful, and after requests from the medium (entranced) for more noise, talking, etc/ . , . (p. 32). * The next stage of the sitting was remarkable for some well defined phenomena. , , , After repeated requests from the medium for more noise, talking, etc/ . . . (p. 22). In the record of another séance at Munich we read : 4 9,26. We recommence singing and the medium beats time to the music [433 SPIRITUAL. ISM by bâ&gmg his fists on my thighs. Curtains still agitated. Cur- tains twisted by some invisible agency* Luminous “ angel” sways tip and down and nearly falls. We cry out “ Bravo 1 Otto/" Thank y&u, Otto/" etc/ {p. 36)* At a laïer sitting : * 10.07 ♦ . » Circle commences singîng " Katharina ” (which bas a fascinating iilt to it) ’ (p, 44). Thete follows the account of the sittings held in London when WÜly Schneider's brother Rudi gave a ' Fraud-proof manifesta" don at the National Laboratory for Psychical Research/ Captain Noël G ow gave his report on it in Light (April 27, 1929) ; in the course of it he says the sitting * was decidcdly unæsthetic, and dignity was conspicuous by its entire absence* * * . We ail sang. ît mas a grotesque noise ; but it apparently served some necessary purpose. In low, whispered, guttural German, the voice of Rudi, the agent for ** O lga/' the presiding intelligence, asked for ail to sing, and we obeyed loyally. u Katharina ** and H Valenda ” were her two favaurites. Somettmes we sang unaccompanied, at other rimes with gramophone aceompaniment. Both methods were equally cacophonous ' (pp. 63-64). Mr. Harry Price States lhat the phenomena produced by Willy and Rudi Schneider 1 hâve împressed both British and Conti nental sdentists * and hâve provided a subject * about which scores of articles and several books hâve been written/ The same remarks can be made regarding the phenomena obtained through the mediumship of Eva C. and Stanislawa P. I myself hâve read accounts of them in Die Uebersinnliche Welt, D e- cember, 1913, by Dr. Josef Peter ; in Luce e Ombra (a sériés of articles Jan.-April 1914), by Dr. Carlo Alzona; and French reports. In none of these is there any indication that the séances were in the süghtest way religious meetings, or that the séances were other than mere experiments in psychical xesearch. If ail these alleged phenomena, ranging from bell-ringing, curtain-bilJowing and handkerchief-manipulation to partial or complété matérialisations, can be produced as a form of leger- demain, are we to condude that il, instead of 4 Katharina ' and * Valenda/ the sitters had sung * Onward, Christian Soldiers/ or * Nearer, my God, to Thee * the proceedings would hâve been a religious service of the kînd advertised as < Church Services ' in SpirituaHst newspapers i * L et us approach this, as far as possible, in a rehgious spirit/ said Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at Ada Besinnett’s flying-tambourine exhibition in total darkness, * Leds sing 44 Katharina,n * says M r. 1S SPIRITUALISM A RELIGION?'

Harry Price, * * ♦ And Mr, Price got the better value for his money, One can only conclude that we must agréé with that ardent Spirituaîist M . Phillippe, whose final words at the Congress met with Moud applause ' (vifs applaudissements) : 4 ï say with ail my soûl î No, Spiritualism is not ; no, Spiritualism never will be ; no, Spiritualism ought not to be a religion/

[ 4 5 ] ÏIÏ

DEATH-HEAVEN v . THE SUMMER LAND p* THE BLUE ISLAND

Despite îhe emphatic déclaration of M* PhilHppe, and leaving out of considération the findings of the Deuxième Congrès Spirite Universel, which were 1 that the question needs further study (la question a besoin d'être encore étudiée) (p. 300), let us assume that Spirituaîism is a religion, and not merely a racket or scientific research— What has rr to tell us of the world to come i Seeing that its beliefs are professedly ail based on the informa tion provided by those who hâve * passed over/ we may surely expect to get some definite, detailed and accurate information on that point After ail, according to SpirituaHsts themselves, they are not angels nor deviis who manifest at séances, but our own friends and relations who hâve passed over the great divide. In the Congress Report the late E* W* Wallis, then editor of L ig h t, used aîmost those very words* I quote from the Report (p* 183) î * Les entités de l'au-delà ne sont ni anges ni démons, ce sont des êtres humains/ Surely, then, those, at least, of them who were SpirituaHsts whüst Hving on this earth, knowing the keen anxiety of their friends srill on earth to leam something definite about the life after death would be only too ready to supply the information* Do we get that definite information i We certainly do not* Reams and teams of paper hâve been used up and wasted in the pretence of providing descriptions of Hfe in the4 Summerland ' or m e4 Bltie îsland/ Fantastic, fanciful and falladous accounts hâve been pubHshed ail purporting to be spirit communierions ; btit from their discrepanaes and contradictions one can only condude that these messages are not the product of any human soûl that had reached Heaven* î am perfectly aware thaï ail sorts of excuses are made for the variations and discrepanaes in these accounts. [46] DEATH—HEAVEN We are told, for instance, by way of explanation, that the spirit had only recently passed over ; and, of course, being only on one of the lower planes, could not be expected to give an accurate account of life in the au-delà. Or, as a further explanation, the excuse is offered that he 4 may be in a fog-bomd beltf and can remain there for centuries apparently without knowing he is dead ' {Heritage of the Dead), Mr* D. Conan Doyle, writing in the Sunday Graphie and Sunday News (Nov. 18,1934), replies to the question : * 4»— Do ail those who pass on know at once that they are dead ( 4 No» It is an interesting fact that many men and women who hâve passed to the next world hâve no idea as to their true position. Many think that they are dreaming, though they cannot understand the reality of everything. 4 They are often very indignant when they are informed that they are 44 dead,” and in some cases they are unable to réalisé their condition for years/ Or, again, sudden and tragic death, according to the editor of Psychic News (Nov. 27, 1943, p. 4), may resuit in the dead not knowing they are dead— and so we cannot expect any accurate information from them. Mr. Barbanell, the editor in question, says : 4 We are becoming famüiar with many cases of “ dead ” airmen, for example, who stili go on flying their aéroplanes and working at their aerodromes, thinking aü the time that something must be wrong with their former earthly associâtes who are unable to see or hear them/ In his account of the George Vak'antine sittings of 1927, M r. H. Dennis Bradley tells us of a ‘ spirit ' who announced himself as Harold Howard. 4 Harold Howard ' 4 said he was killed in the war î in an advance 44 over the top.” He told me that it was at least twenty minutes before he reaüzed that he had passed over. He stated that for this twenty minutes, although his body was lying on the field, he went on with the attacking party thinking he was still alive. He then found that those around him could not see him, and he went back and viewed his body lying dead * (. . . And Aftert pp. 80-81). The Rev* G. Vale Owen, in his lecture on * Life Beyond the Veil/ stated that4 Death was a perfectly natural process of which nobody need hâve any fear. It was exactiy the same thing as falling asleep, with the exception that the cord which held the spirit to the material world was broken, and the sleeper woke up

[4 7 3 SPIRITUALISM in the new world, where his friends would be waitîng to receive him, and to teach him his way about in spirit life/ Mr, Vale Owen made no mention of any difficulties due to fog-bound belts or to peopîe kiUed tragically not knowing they were dead. His lecture gave one the impression that men who were kilied in action found communication with this world easy : * The spirits of young men who fell in the war told him not to be afraid of death. ** When you get up here,” they said, ” you wili get the shock of your life, because you will find out you are just as you were/'’ r We are led, then, to ask : What realîy is the explanation Spiritualists wish us to accept to account for these conflicting statements i Accotding to newspaper reports, well-known peopîe die and aimost immediately after their death médiums in varions parts o f the world claim to be in communication with the spirits of these notabilités, Immediately after the death of Edgar Wallace a medium claimed to hâve had a message from him, The genuineness of the message was denied by Mrs, Wallace on the grounds that if it were really her husband who had given it his fîrst concern would hâve been not for his dog, as the medium stated, but for herself. In his Lmves from a Psychùfs Case-Book Mr, Harry Price, in the chapter * Conan Doyle “ cornes back n * (p, 97), States 1 * At 343 on the afternoon of July 7,1930, a press agency rang me up and informed me that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had 44 corne back ” and manifested through a medium in the Midlands— exactly 6§ hours after the passing of the great apostle of spiritualism, ♦ . . 4 * . . Within forty-eight hours of Doyle’s death I had received seveateen reports to the effect that Sir Arthur had “ returned n through médiums in Vancouver, Paris, New York, Belgium, Italy, and other parts of the world. * .-. On one day it appears that Sir Arthur was at Wilkes Barre, Pa,, and Lyons (France) at practically the same moment/ Raymond Lodge is aîleged to hâve begun to communicate with his family eieven aays after he met with a tragic and sudden death in the last war. Miss Estelle Stead, by her own account in The Blue Isîand (p. aevi}, talks with her father fourteen days after he was drowned when the Titanic went down. 4 Jimmy Sparrow/ a cockney boy, aged ten, who was knocked [48] DEATH—HEAYEN down and killed by a lorry in the East End of London, spoke, a few weeks after he was killed, to the editor of Psychic News at Hannen Swaffer's cirde (Psychic New$> Jam 6, 1943), So it looks as if the 4 sudden and tragic death ' explanation îs a very poor one ; and the 4 fog-bound beltf is even weaker j and if Conan Doyle cottld manifest 6| hours after passing over, well, the excuse of * the shortness of time * does not hold water at ail* But what are we to think of W. T, Stead, whose sudden and tragic death presented no difficulty to his realising, within 4 a few seconds/ that he had passed over i 41 was stiil so near the earth that I could see everything going on there, Where I was I could see the wrecked ship, the people, the whole scene ; and that seemed to pull me into action— I could help 1 ♦ * » and so in a few seconds— though I am now taking a long time to tell you, it was only a few seconds really— I found myself changed from the helpless State to one of action ; h e l p f ü l not helpless— I was helpful, too, I thinkf (The Elue Island, p* 38)» Raymond Lodge, W* T. Stead, Conan Doyle, Jimmy Sparrow, Edgar Wallace— ail manifesting so soon after death : what are we to conclude i On the plea of the shortness of time that elapsed between the death of three of these important witnesses and the time when they first got into communication with their friends on earth, are we to disregard ail that they are alleged to hâve said about the Blue Island or the Summer Land i I put the question from the standpoint of Spiritualists— personally I do not believe that any one of the accounts furnished is genuine and authentic» But the Spiritualist has to face the difficulty. In the matter of psychical (or mental) phenomena he has no canon of iudgment— he has no more reason for denoundng one medium as fraudulent than he has for accrediting others» If a medium in the Midlands daims to hâve had a spirit message from the defunct Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 6| hours after hxs passing over, is that mediumls daim to be rejected in favour of a fabulous, unidentifiable 4 Pheneas f who is alleged to hâve lived before Abraham and who gives his messages through the mediumship of Sir Arthur's widow i Must we rely only on the accounts furnished by unidentifiable * guides r who masquerade as High Priests of Egypt, unknown Red Indians, or the prophet Malachy using the nom-de-séance of * Imperator * i These are not vague rhetorical questions ; they concern the

[ 4 9 ] d SPIRITUALISM vexed problems of authenticity, genuineness and identity. They aie crucial points» However, let us take it that these oîder f guides/ philosophers and * spirit ’ friends did pass over thousands of years ago. They ought, by now, to know something definite, detaiied and reliable about the conditions in which they now live. How does the story told by the old arrivais compare with that of the new arrivais i Strangely enough, in view of the excuse put forward to cover the dîscrepandes and contradictions in spirit messages, vis. that the new-arrival had not been long enough in the spirit-world to be able to communicate accurately, the description given to the Doyle family by the ante-Abrahamanîc ‘ Pheneas’ tallies to a great extent with that given by the aileged Raymond Lodge. ' But that just goes to show how accurate the two accounts must be ! * Does it i Drop your insularity, my good Spiritualist friend. Read the 4 messages ' given to Continental Spiritualists and to many in the United States of America. They don’t tally with the * messages ’ given for British consumption. Once again I refer my readers to the Report of the Second International Spiritualist Congress. I do so because that Congress concemed itself to a great extent with the question of the trust- nmrthiness of spirit-messages. An intelligent study of that Report shows the marked différence between British and Continental ideas of the future life. However, since this book is intended for English-speaking readers we shall confine our study of the life-to-come to the accounts provided by English-speaking médiums and their English-speaking Red Indians, Arabs and Egyptians. We ask these spirit-guides : Under what conditions does the soûl survive i and what is life like in the worid to corne i As soon as that question is put disagreements, and disputes even, arise. And this is strange and puzaling. Suppose a hypothetical inhabitant of Mars were to arrive on this globe of ours, would we not expect him to be able to tell us something definite, something detaiied and spécifie about the conditions of life amongst the Martians i ' And suppose that this good Martian was found to be unable to give any really definite Mormation as to the Martians’ mode of life (the food they eat ; their occupations ; their style of houses ; and so on, and so on), but could merely reply that they did not [50] DEATH—HEAVEN eat méat ; their occupations were * more vital ' than ours ; their buildings were, well, buildings, what would we conclude i Suppose, further, that other Martians arrived and that they, in reply to our questioning, gave reports entirely contradictory of that supplied by the first arrivai, and disagreeing also amongst themselves, would we not be justifiedin wondering not only which of them to beüeve, but also whether they ail came from the same place i And perhaps we might even be justified in disbelieving whether any of them came from Mars, Yet that is the State of things regarding the alleged spirit- messages so readily believed in by Spiritualists. And we Catholics are reckoned to be the ones who are credulous 1 These wonder- fully well-informed people who know so much about heaven— yes, the terra 4 heavenf is used by them sometimes—-seem to sneer at the Catholic ideas about the life after death. They refer contemptuously to the conception of what they call the4 orthodox heaven/ The Rev, William Stainton Moses started the fashion just on seventy years ago. Since then Spiritualists of a less educated type hâve repeated the adjectival phrase parrot-Hke, Some of them do so without knowing the meaning of * orthodox/ It means 4 sound opinion or doctrine/ And just as we find them incapable of understanding the real meaning of 4 creed f or ♦ doctrine * or ' dogma/ so we find editors of Spiritualist newspapers writing about 4 f aise orthodox teaching' (Psychic News, Nov. 27, 1943), Stainton Moses, the Lyceum Marnai, and Mr. Ralph Shirley ail hâve their tilt at what they term * the orthodox heaven/ This * orthodox heaven *— though where they get the idea of its being orthodox is a puzzle*—is a * psalm-singing heavenr (Lyceum Marnai), a heaven 4 of angels with harps sitting on damp douds * (Ralph Shirley)^ And the joke is agaînst them, The Lyceum Marnai abounds in doggerd verse describing angel choirs ; the Rev, Vale Owen left it on record that his daughter Ruby is training her children to sing in the heavenly choir ; and Mr, Shirley himself cites a passage from The Letters of a Living Dead Man (a book that meets his entire approval) in which a wandering soûl in the world to corne is carried off * to some similitude of the orthodox heaven * (Occult Review, April rgi^, P* *93)* - Stainton Moses speaks of 4 the mass of contradictions in the messages/ and from the point of view of the alleged daims of [51] SP IRITUALISM Spiritualism these contradictions are tinfortunately most marked in the descriptions of life after death— descriptions furnished, mark you, by people who hâve * passed over/ Stainton Moses might interject, were he alive to-day, that it i s 4 the material heaven ' that lias gone with the advent of Spîritual- ism* But bas it { The Stimmer Land, or Heaven of the Spiritualists, is nothing if not material ; it is so very material that its very distance from the earth can be measured— that is, if we accept the assurances of those who prétend to know. But even this matter of the distance of the Summer Land from our poor earth is not without its contradictions : The ‘ spirits ' informed Professer Robert Hare that the spirit world lies between 60 and rao miles from the terrestrxal surface (Experimental Investigation, p. 87). T h e operative word here would seem to be 4 lies/ because the spirits also informed M r. J, H* McKenzie that 1 the Summer Land ' is 41,350 miles from earth ' (Spirit Interconrsef p . 203)* However, the différence between 120 miles and 1,350 need not trouble us because other visitors from the au-delà informed Andrew Jackson Davis that the Summer Land 4 is a belt of land extending above the earth two-thirds of the distance from the son (Moming Lectures, pp. 349-350). That makes it about 60,000,000 miles away 1 Anyway, the Summer Land is somewhere. It has a more or less geogxaphical position ; perhaps not suffidently accurately charted for aeronautical navigation— but there it is. We next want to know how the departed soûl reaches the Summer Land, be the distance 60 miles (Hare) or 60,000,000 miles (Davis) ; and how does it fare when it gets there i Well, we really don't know. Some of the revenants d*outre- tomJbe tell us one story, some tell a taller. The Rev. G. Vale Owen tells us that we simply fall asleep, * and the sleeper waked up in the new world, where his friends would be waiting to receive him/ Air Ghief-Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding offers for our belief a message alîeged to hâve been received * through the pencil of Colonel Gascoigne’s daughter, Mrs. Hill* (Sunday Pictorial, Jtrne 6,1943). Colonel Gascoigne is dead, but he has organised the transmission of messages from the Summer Land to earth. One message given in that issue purports to corne from * the driver of a tank in Libya/ At the end of a supposed description Csa] DEATH—HEAVEN of how the whole crew of the tank came to réalisé they were dead— 4 He said to me, 44 Why, Alf, we're dead now/f . . . So we both laughed, not caring, yet caring very much *—we are told that the driver thanked his officer and asked if ail were safe j and * he said, 44 Yes, and now we#d best be going, but where to I don't know," * So we just trudged on after him without taking any particular direction, and soon we came to quite a different country ; I was glad to leave the desert behind and be in wooded country again. We were joined by others of our own forces and others of ail kinds. * Suddenly I felt so tired that I lay down in the shade of a big tree covered with fruit, and that is the end of my first venture, ï canh Write any more to-night/ The alleged spirit of W . T , Stead gives a more detailed account : * The scene on the boat at the time of striking was not pleasant, but it was as nothing to the scene among the poor soûls newly thrust out of their bodies, ail unwillingly. It was both heart- breaking and repellent, And thus we waited— waited until ail were collected, until ail was ready, and then we moved our scene to a different land. 4 It was a curious journey that. Far more strange than anything I had anticipated. We seemed to rise verticaüy at terrifie speed. As a whole we moved, as if it were on a very large platform, and this was hurled into the air with gigantic strength and speed, yet there was no feeling of insecurity. » * . We were quite steady. I cannot tell how long our journey lasted, nor how far from the earth we were when we arrived, but it was a gloriously beautiful arrivai ' (The Bîue hland, pp. 39-40), But Sir Oliver Lodge has a version of his own. He gravely informed us in Raymond that the flight of the soûl is not left to die forces of gravitation. The fond fancies of childhood are ail ruthlessly dispelled by the discoveries of science. We do not mount to heaven as glorious rays of light, nor as spirit-forms clothed in gleaming robes of white ; we do not mount on a platform * hurled into the air with gigantic strength and speed '— no . . . we go as smells, The human body, says the inventor of the theory of ether, contains 4 etheric substance f which is dissîpated at death, but is gathered together by 4 a spirit doctor who cornes round/ This etheric substance of the human body is transmitted to the next world by the gases and smells of putréfaction. (Query : Can smells travel 60 million miles s1) [ 5 3 ] SPIRITUALISM

When the spirit doctor has gathered the smells and gases together (one supposes he knows which belong to each of the hundreds and thousands of bodies that are either buried in the ground, drowned at sea, cremated in cemeteries, burnt at funeral ghats or exposed on ' towers of silence * each day throughout the world) then some of the new arrivais 4 dwell in a fog-bank and can remain there for centuries, apparently without knowing they are dead ' (Heritage of the Dead) ; many, because o f 4 years of false orthodox teaching, do not réalisé they hâve passed on ' (Psychic News, Nov. 27, 1943). Some are given a choice of the sphere in which they wish to dwell (The Voices— by Admirai Moone). Some are given spirit garments which they soon change for their old kit (Raymond)* Some are left with their ‘ old rusty black frock somewhat out of date * (Letters of a Living Dead Man), just as W* T* Stead found that his father was * dressed as I had always known him * (The Elue Island) ; his suit, also, must hâve been 4 somewhat out of date/ * In clothîag/ the pseudo W. T. Stead informs us, ' we are practically as on earth, and as there are so many races here you can weli understand the general appearance of this land is most unusual, and in an odd way particularly interesting and amusing ' (The Elue Island, p* 65). One can quite imagine how amusing it must be to see those who were drowned whilst bathîng, wearing perhaps no costume at ail, competing, in the matter of dress, with the Kavirondo from Uganda, or the Austraüan bushman or some of the tribes from the Belgian Congo* It may be comforting to some— to the gourmands or the gourmets — to know that on arrivai they can get a meal right away. At least4 W* T . Stead ' says so : ' Everything and everybody seemed to be quite normal— quite as on earth* We went out together and had refreshment at once * (p. 47)* * At once/ mark you* Isn't that fine ! Not content with that, foüowing 4 a long walk together along the shore * they ‘ arrived at length at a huge building, tircular and with a great dôme. . * . We stayed there some time and had refreshment very similar, it seemed to me, to what I had always known, only there was no flesbfood '(p* 50). . * . * Looked upon as a meal— a lunch out— it was the longest one I hâve ever known * (p. 55). Poor Stead seems not to hâve got into a first-class eating-place for he refers to the refreshments as being very similar to what he had always known ; whereas other spirit messages say that they

C 54 3 DEATH—HEAVEN hâve food over there, but 4 Not in your sense but much nicer. Such lovely essences and wonderful fruits, and other things besides, which you don't hâve on earth/ But the cigars and whiskey, manufactured 4 out of essences and ethers and gases * of which Raymond tells, are apparently provided for ail. And what is life like in the Summer Land or the Blue Island i Despite the assurances repeated a hundred thousand times over at séances that everyone is 4 happy, very happy— much happier than when they were on earth/ a tiny glimmer of iogic and of the sense of justice betrays itself occasionally in Spiritualistic writings ; hence we find admissions here and there that some are not happy because their lives on earth were evil. Others are unhappy as a resuit of their false * orthodox * reh'gious belîefs. The pseudo-Stead provides us with a saddemng thumb-nail sketch o f many whose unhappiness starts from the moment of death : 4 A matter of a few minutes in time only, and here were hundreds of bodies floating in the water— dead— hundreds of soûls carried through the air, alive ; very much alive some were. Many, realising their death had corne, were enraged at their powerlessness to save their valuables. They fought to save what they had on earth prised so much ' (The Blue Island, p. 39), Letters of a Living Dead Man présents the picture of an unfortunate, hapless, helpless woman who, when on earth, lived in one boarding-house after another in the United States. This un happy soûl fanded she was still living in a boarding-house, and, in conséquence, was most misérable. She was met on the astral plane by the spirit who communicated the Letters of a Living Dead Man, and he attempted to console her, asking her to tell him her troubles. 4 44 Why, I hardly know where to begin,” she answered. 44 ï hâve found so many unpleasant things." 4 44 What, for instance i " 4 44 Why, horrid people. I remember that when I lived in ------I sometimes told myself that in the other world I would not be bothered with boarding-house landiadies and their careless hired girls ; but they are just as bad here— even worse." . . . 4 44 Is the table good in your boarding-house i " I asked. 4 44 No, it is worse than at the last one." 4 44 Are the meals scanty i " 4 44 Yes, scanty and bad, espedally the coffee."f Now, can any thoughtful, earnest Christian who believes in an infinitely good God really be convinced that the Almighty would [55] SPIRITUALISM

allow a hapless soûl to go wandering in heaven sufferîng from delusions Hke that Especially the coffee/— Let the reader ask himself honestly i does the story ring true i We are told regarding the author of this book that he was ' a weli-known American lawyer, who was also a profound student of philosophy, an author, and a man whose ideals and enthusiasms were, in the words of the transcriber, an inspiration to everyone who knew bina.’ We are told also that ' It is obvious that the writer took over with him to the other side the keen intelligence of an investigator as well as the impartiality of the judicial mind* (Ralph Shirley in the Occult Review, VoL X IX , No* 4, pp* 185-6). In praise of the book the same article says : 4 Compared with it, ail previous records seem trivial and commonplace/ Unfortunately the incident of the deluded and misérable boarding-house lady is not the only one which the book contains to contradict the platttudinous * I am happy, very happy * of the common drcles* Not everybody is happy over there. However, to enable us to guard against this unhappiness there are wamings uttered by this anonymous well-known American lawyer. One is : 4 Don't look back/ a warning against 4 the terrible curiosity to go back and look upon that body which we once believed to be ourselves/ The other warning is : 4 Beware o f deathbed repentance and its after-harvest of morbid memories. * * * He who dwells upon his sins in his last hour will live them over and over again in the State beyond the tomb/ Now, what evidence do these statements provide of ' the keen intelligence 1 of the author or communicator in these two wamings i Does not everybody know that within a few days after burial the remalns of a human body are not an object anyone would wish to gaçe uponî* Who would be so consumed by curiosity as to wish to retum to this world to see a mass of corruption and worms i HappÜy this picture of lost soûls in rusty black frocks remaining ha a dream-state that is so desolate, or of soûls that return to pore over the corruption of cemeteries is not the only side there is to the descriptive spirit accounts we are vouchsafed of the Summer Land. There are other accounts of the lower spheres that vie with the so-called orthodox materialist descriptions of helh But let us look now on the brighter side* Thanks to the information supplied by an Arabian sage who lived before the time of Abraham, and to that supplied by other [ 5 6 ] DEATH—HEAVEN ' guides/ like * Lily/ conveyed through the mediutnship of Lady Conan Doyle, and by Claude Bamber, we hâve the assurance tfaat whilst we here await the time for our passing over there are ffiends of ours busy building houses for us in the Summer Land. Little do people dream as they go to the pictures or to the theatre or to their work that ail the time they are intent on their amusements or pre-occupied with their business, architects and bricklayers in the next world are planning our future homes for us in préparation for our arrivai. These homes are houses of red brick, and the bricks are made by extracting substances from the air with a machine like a dynamo; and the houses are built in * gardens where the flowers tum towards you as you enter, or, in case they don't like you, tum away/ They ' hâve rooms as on earth, but so much lovelier. The colours are so much daintier, and the fabrics so much more délicate/ The spirits eat and sleep : there are cigars and whiskey, but no beds—* Spirits . . . repose on a veivety kind of grass/ Whilst the ideals of the Tempérance Societies (Band of Hope, and so on) are rejected those of the Vegetarian Societies are respected. 4 We hâve no méat here/ but the rest of the food is 4 much nicer * than that on earth : 4 lovely essences and wonderful fruits, and other things besides/ It seems such a shame that the hapless boarding-house tenant was left so long without finding this out ; the 4 lovely essences * would hâve compensated for the vile coffee. One only wonders why there should be so much activity on the part of the architects who plan the houses so very anxiously and of the men who do the bricklaying and tend the dynamos when other ' spirits * assure us that they hâve only to 4 breathe forth the desire and the thing is created/ Fancy ail those workmen wasting their ehergies so î bricklayers, painters, slaterers, the men who lay the terraces and'dig the oblong ponds, the plumbers, the gardeners, the carpenters and the joiners, and the upholsterers who handle the délicate fabrics. How inconsiderate on the part of the ' spirits * not to * breathe forth the desire * for what they want and so save ail that trouble. Perhaps the explanation is that we ail carry on in the Summer Land with our earth-time avocations, because we are told that doctors go on with their medical work— midwifery and testing smells for the identification of bodies— and writers still write. Medical work and literary pursuits are pleasant occupations, but

[5 7 3 SPIRITÜALISM do servants still hâve to sweep and clean, hâve they to wash ttp when the superior * spirits ' hâve drunk their whiskey and eaten their ' wonderful fruits/ or hâve had the longest meals they ever knew in the domed buildings of the Elue Island i Of course it is not only the doctors and writers who are able to carry on with their professions. Nor is it ail work and no play. 4 It seems that ail the senses are provided for here. The chief work on this island is to get rid of unhappiness at parting from earth des, and therefore, for the time being, the individual is allowed to indulge in most of eartb/s pleasures. There are attractions of ail îdnds, . . . Whatever the person's particular interest on earth has been, he can follow it up and indulge in it here for the présent. Ail mental interests and almost ail physical intereste can be continued here. . * . 4 There are houses given over to book study, music, to athletî- dsm of ail kinds. Every kind of physical game can be practised— yoti can ride on horseback, you can swim in the sea. You can hâve aU and any kind of sport which does not involve the taking of life/ In case the reader shouîd wonder how 4 athleticism of ail kinds * — cycle racing ; the 500 yds. and the mile ; dirt-track racing ; football ; cricket; and so on— can be practised in a house, I must point out that these houses are larger than Hider's Chan- cellery (that was) with its frontage of 800 yards. During that longest meal he had shortly after his arrivai W . T . Stead had explained to him by his father the purpose served by the varions * houses/ * He explained to me that the place we were then in was a temporary rest house, one of many, but the one most used by newly arrived people * (p. 55). It was not only a house ; it was a building. 4 There were other buildings used for the same purpose as well as for other purposes ; by that I mean that there was more than one of each. 4 These different houses were not ail alike, they varied considerably in outward appearance, but there is no need to describe each. To calî it a big building is suffident, and by that you must understand a place like your muséum or your portrait gallery, or your large hôtels . . . anythîng you like, and it is near enough. But it was not fantastic in any way and had no peculiarities, therefore by 44 building ” I mean a building only * (pp. 55-56), So m m , gentle reader, after that masterly description, you can understand how houses can be 4 given over to athleticism of ail [ 5 8 ] DEATH—HEAVEN kinds because these houses are ' buildings/ and by ' buildings' the spirit of Mr. W , T , Stead means buildings, The musician and the man with literary leanings are well provided for : * Music belongs to this land/ * Then there is the bookworm, He, too, finds intense satisfaction in his new-found fadlities. Knowledge is unlimited— Works of priceless value, lost upon earth, are in existence here ' (p, 57), So the ^scholar m ay look forward to finding the missing papyri of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the treasures of the libraries of ancient Alexandria and of modem Louvain, One little point that will appeal to the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Rothschilds, the Leverhulmes— ' The keen business man on earth whose only interest is in making his business successful will also find scope for his ability, He will corne in contact with the house of organisation, and he will find himself linked up with work transcending in interest anything that he could hâve im- agined for himself whilst on earth * (pp, 57-58). Not only those who are seriously concerned with their sport or music or books or business hâve every means of being 4 happy, happier than on earth/ but larking larrikins are not left without their opportunities for fun, The Rev, G. Vale Owen, in his lecture on * The Life beyond the Veil/ declared that * The spirits were no more straight-laced than mortal créatures, and were just as fond of humour, A group of young soldiers told him that they had visited his old church at Orford, and stayed there throughout the service ; and when he asked them 4 What did you do about the collection i ' they only laughed and repiied, 4 Oh, we eut that out/ Mr. Vale Owen's larking soldiers are not the only spirits who are 4 no more straight-laced than mortal créatures/ 4 ever-loving husbands/ as Damon Runyan described them, also corne back to earth to embrace their wives. At least, so we are informed by Lady Caillard in an article she wrote for Psychic News. T h is is what she tells us : 4 A few days before Christmas I was asked by my husband *~~ Sir Vincent Caillard had been dead some time—4 to arrange for a Christmas party on Christmas Eve, There was to be a Christmas créé for the spirit children, and I was to hang up my stocking. He said he would put something in it, even if it was only a clothes peg. The party was to be held at Mrs, L, E. Smgleton’s house, and only three of us were to be présent— Mrs. Singleton, B. K . Kirkby, and myself. . . . After our muai prayer (italics mine), and before [59] SPIRÏTUALISM we had finished playing a Christmas carol on the gramophone, little Ivy came and asked Kirkby to * Stop It, meaning the gramo phone, She told us that the room was full of children who had corne to the party, . , . 1 One of the most wonderful things happened at this party, I was not going to write about it, because I feel it is too sacred. But Sir Vincent says he is so proud of being able to do it that he wished me to add it/ Here the next two h'ttes are prînted in italics : 4 He ms able to put his arm round me and kiss me three times. , , , 41 think it was the most wonderful party I ever attended/ I like the way in which the bashful italics are introduced, like a coy, shy maiden whispering a secret t 4 He was able to put his arm round me and kiss me three limes * ! One wonders what Mr, Kirkby thought of it— or didn't he i Mr, Kirkby» by the way» was one of the witnesses for the defence in the recent Helen Dttncan trial for fraudulent mediumship. And why the * usual prayer * at the beginning, to be followed by * The Big Bad Wolff on the gramophone i Is < The Big Bad W olf ' a hymn i However» well leave these grown-ups to their fun and games and pass on to the bed-time storîes of the Summer Land as told by Grandpa Andrew Jackson Davis» Auntie Gaillard» and other well-known friends of spint-chüdren, Now here is a very spécial message for the children, Children in the Summer Land— that's Heaven» you know ; only Spiritualists don’t seem to like the Bible-name of Heaven ; they prefer to call it the 4 Summer Land»' o r 4 The Blue Island»' or the ‘ Return or Stay Sphere * or something like that— anyway, children are weü cared for there» very weU looked after, They live in surroundings where there are flowers and rippling brooks» * the silver seas and the murmhing trees * and * evergreen fields * and 4 the echoes caught from the birds of Paradise/ And the place is fnll of angels * whose presence is marked by an iridescent glory» and their footsteps are luminous long after they hâve passed * {Lyc&rn Manual, § 304), Shouîd this be 4 foot-prints»* by any chance f The srilly psalm-singing Heaven is donc away with »* but there still is music in the Summer Land. The angels may not4 sit on damp clouds ’ to play their harps as Uncle Ralph Shirley would hâve it» but they sdll hâve their harps and they still sing. Uncle [60] DEATH—HEAVBN Alfred Kitson has told us so. Now, just get out your Marnai and you'll learn ail about it in section 201, * Spiritual Harps * : 4 We corne, we corne with our harps of gold, From the far-off Summer Land, The crystal river weVe crossed again, WeVe left an angel band To bring to you on our golden harps Sweet music from afar ; With cadence soft the Angels sing, As they glide from star to star. ^ Gliding from star to star is ever so much more pleasant than sitting on one of Uncle Ralph Shirley’s damp clouds, even though the stars may be millions of miles apart. But I wonder, children, does gliding from star to star afïord any opportunity for leaving 4 luminous footsteps ' i It sounds like Alice in Wonderland, doesn't it i Anyway, children, you need never be frightened of death ; Uncle Kersey tells us that 4 Children enter the Spirit World as Spirit Children/ He does not say how they get there : whether they go bang up on a kind of Magic Carpet, like Uncle William Stead did ; or whether they go up as smells, like Uncle Oliver says. WeU, when children get there they don't feel lonely. 4 Good and loving Spirit Friends gather round to welcome the little stranger, and if the child's earthly mother has preceded it, the mother takes charge, if worthy ; otherwise it is placed in charge of a good Spirit who is specially noted for love of children/ And * Children grow in Spirit-Life . . . their spirit bodies grow so transcendently lovely, no human mind can conceive of the beauty and grâce of these little ones/ When they are old enough they go to school, Of course they are not caîled * schools ' j they are 4 Progressive Lyceums/ which is ever so much nicer— just like the Word 4 Summerland ’ is nicer than the Word * Heaven/ So you won’t mind going to a Progressive Lyceum in the Summerland, will you i After ail, Uncle William Stead has told us that ail grown- up people hâve to hâve lessons there ; and in any case ' the method of teaching is mostly by object lessons *— so Uncle Kersey says. Besides, they are such lovely schools ! The English Board of Education would never dream of black-listing the Summerland schools because the spirit children are * assembled [61] SPIRITUALISME In large and beautiful halls arranged in groups, where they go through some beautiful marches, in which are illustrated the motions of the planets round the sun.’ They also hâve 4 beautiful lessons in geography,’ I'm sure I'd like a * beautiful' lesson in geography ; but I don't thînk I could * mardi ' whilst illustrating how the earth goes round the sun, It would be difficult and diszying, wouldn’t it i There is a language of colour, too, which is taught in thç Summer Land— by the way, children, you may spell it : Summerland, Summer-land or Summer Land— and the Lyceums # are sur- rounded by large and beautiful gardens, where birds sing, flowers bloom, waters ripple and fountains play,’ And then, just hke Hitler's Youth, after their drill the Lyceum members march ’ in perfect order, over undulating plains, with banners waving, and making the valieys resound with their sweet mélodies, whxle on their way to visit some other Lyceum, who receive thera with friendly greetings, giving either the right-hand symbol of “ Good will ” or the left-hand symbol of “ Fraternal love.” * A li thîs must be true, children, because Grandpa Andrew Jack son Davis saw it 4 in his visits to those régions of the spirit worîd where spirit children are instructed,’ What is more, the Lyceum owes its origin to 4 spirit révélation which shows us how God’s will is done in heaven/ (Lyceum Manrnl, §§ 139 and 148). Of course * these spirit children ’ do not spend all their time in the Lyceum ; they hâve their games and fun just like the grown-up people. Like the soldiers killed in the last war who used to visit the Rev. G, Vale Owen’s church at Orford— perhaps you remember hearing of M r. Vale Owen : he was the clergyman who used to go travelling round to tell people all about the Summer Land, and who said at the begmning of a lecture : 4 1 am still a member of the Church of England and a member of its priesthood, and I wear my collar the wrong way round as a sign that I still belong to that benighted body ’— well, just as dead soldiers used to visit his church, so children * retum at times to visit their earthly friends, Their Guardians bring them back to their earthly homes, that they may learn the lesson of earth life, feel the warmth of parental love, and know the joy of earthly affections,’ And if they are very, very good they may join in the Christmas parties given on earth for spirit children by soft-hearted people [6aj DEATH—HEAVEN like Lady Gaillard and Mr. and Mrs* Perriman j and there are Christmas trees at these parties spedally for spirit children ! Sometimes, like at Lady Caillard's, the darkened room is * füli of children who hâve corne to the party/ and they * touch the things on the tree ' and ' ring ail the bells at once.' Isn't that lovely, children i Fancy ringing ail the bells at once î and in the dark too 1 ! There is music on the gramophone at these parties, and there are 4 plated hand-bells ' and even * spécial crackers ' sometimes. Even clothes-pegs— just fancy, children, dothes-pegs— are put in the stockings that hâve been hung up by the soft-hearted ladies. And just as children who still live on earth hâve their h'ttle tiffs even at Christmas parties, so do the spirit children. At least there was some trouble at Lady Gaillard's party wheû she 4 had bought a doll for Ivy/ who was a negro spirit child, and 4 there was some trouble over this/ 4 Jack Cornwell came and said : 44 That little black kid is awfully cheeky. She dug me in the ribs and told me to get ont, because I touched her doll. I told her I would give her something when we got back this evening/' ' Perhaps poor Jackie couldn't give Ivy something till they got back because he couldn't see her in the dark. Anyway, they played * The Big Bad Wolf ' on the gramophone, and ail the spirit children * kept time with the trumpet and the bells/ And you need not be afraid of these parties, children, just because they are held in the dark. Lady Gaillard said : * It was aU so natural ’ ; so you need not fear there was anything supernatural about it. So now, children, you can see how, both for yourselves and for grown-up people, Spiritualism has got rid of every idea of a material heaven. The Sommer Land is ail so very spiritnaL Angels still hâve their golden harps, but they only sing when ghding from star to star, leaving luminous footsteps behind them long after they hâve passed ; they would never dream of singing whilst sitting on damp clouds, but they might when reposing on velvety grass. AU these silly Christians may believe that the happiness of Heaven consists in the Béatifie Vision— that is, in seeing God, Who made the human soûl and for Whom the human soûl was made ; but Spiritualists know better. On page sixty-one of the Rev. Stainton Moses's book, Higker [63] SPIRITUALISM

Aspects of Spiritualismt we read : * This, then, is spirit- teaching * . » : God is spoken of as the Suprême, Ali-wise Ruler of Création, the Object of the ceaseîess adoration of ail created sentient (ski) beings, No s p i r i t w h o communicates w i t h BARTH, HOWEYER LONG HIS SPIRIT-LIFE MAY HAVE BEEN, PRETENDS TO HAVE SEEN H lM , OR TO HAVE PENETRATED TO H lS PRESENCE/ You can understand now, children, the beauty of SpirituaHsm, Instead of a State of unending bliss where sorrow and tears are no more ; where the human will is perfectly satisfied with the love of God, and the human mind is equally satisfied by ail know ledge through the Vision of God seen face to face, SpirituaHsm tells you that you can still quarrel in the Summer Land, and envious boys can ‘ give little girls something ' for digging them in the ribs ; and children can go to Progressive Lyceums and do beautiful marches from one to another ; and at Christmas time they can leave the celestial festivities, that Uncle Maurice Barbanell has told us about, and corne millions of miles to beautiful parties held in darkened rooms on earth, and ring ail the bells on the Christmas tree at once—-and they need not give a single thought to the Baby Jésus Christ Whose birth on earth inspired the idea of a feast for children on the anniversary of His Nativity. Good-night, children.

Ail the above details about life after death are taken from alleged spirit-messages. Much is supplied from the book of Miss Estelle Stead and Mr, Pardoe Woodman, entitled The Blue Island, which is oflered to us as the révélations of W. T , Stead who was drowned on the Titanic, For sheer banafity and vague generafities The Bine Island would be hard to beat, W, T, Stead, former editor of the Review of Reviews, had a great rtame in journalisai, At the time of his tragic death continental Spiritualist hewspapers and monthh'es praised his literary ability. The editor of the Revue Spirite, in the issue for January 1913, said of him : * M, W* T, Stead . , , est non seulement en Angleterre mais encore dans tous les pays de langue anglaise, un pubHdste de haute autorité, et pour son grand talent, pour sa culture intellectuelle *— Mr. W, T. Stead is, not only in England, but also in ail Engüsh-speaking countries, a journalist of great authority both on account of his great talent as well as for his inteHectual culture. In an obituary notice of his death we read in Psychische Studien (June 1912) : * Er ist bei su seinçm Tode der anerkannte Meister [64] DEATH—HEAVEN des Interviews gebüeben und derglânsendeste Jouraalist Bnglands * — He remained. till his death the acknowledged master o? inter views and the most briilîant jouraalist in England, I challenge anyone who has had even only a fairly good literary training to find any evidence of * great talent ' or 4 inteEectual culture * in his alleged spirit communications as contained in The Blue Islande To begin with, the book damas itself by the inclusion, as frontispiece, of a photograph of Miss Estelle Stead which carries on it a 4 spirit extra/ To anyone who knows a little even of the Crewe Circle photography and of the exposure of the spirit- photographer, Mr, Hope, who took this photograph of Miss Stead, suspicion at once suggests itself as to the genuineness of the contents of the book, Added to this is the fact that in place of the clear and defined and intelligent account of his new life that one would expect to get from 4 England’s most brilliant journalist * we are presented wîth vague generalities, dumsy expressions, escapist phrases and platitudinous moralisings, This is how 4 W* T, Stead * sums up life on the Blue Island t * When you are inclined to ask ; 44 What are they ail doing there 4 ” turn your mind to some dear one on earth who has taken up an out-of-the-way kind of life somewhere abroad, where you are not in constant and intimate touch, and say of him,441 wonder what he's doing now 4 ” , , , Then answer it by saying, 441 suppose he's carrying on/' So are we, we people in the Blue Island ’ (p, 68), With the picture of 4 Sir Vincent Gaillard * kissing his wîfe at the Christmas party, and remembering ail that Dr, Peebles, Mr. Stainton Moses and others hâve told us about the hordes of earthbound spirits who 4 hover round the confines and rush in when the gates are set ajar/— and so on for three pages of Spirit Identity— we leave it to the humourist to interpret that passage for himself. As for the seriously-minded I would ask : Does any one of these alleged spirit descriptions of the Summer Land approach within a fraction of the beauty of the reward one would expect from a God of infinité holiness and_ infinité love 4 Hâve the 4 spirits ' and theîr automatic human agents— be they clairvoyant, clairaudient, or cosmopathic— no idea of the dignity of the human soûl i Has any 4 spirit ' ever communicated any reflections, ideas or thoughts comparable with the writings of St, Augustine, St, John of God, St,_ Teresa of Avila, or the Imitation of Christ of St, Thomas à Kempis 4 £651 E SPIRITUALISM Do Spiritualiste reaiîy believe that the martyrs of the early Church, the Apostles, St, Stephen, St. Agnes> St, Francis of Âssisi, St, Vincent of Paul, St. Joan of Arc, St, Thomas Aquinas, St, Cîare and countless others who ieft ail things to follow Christ are to hâve in the next world as their reward merely a répétition of our présent life on earth i Instead of swallowing Wholesale and believing blindly the fourth-form standard of essays on life after death as provided, for example, in The Blm Isîand, would we not honour God more by trusting Him to provide a reward hereafter more in character and keeping with His infinité purity and goodness and power i To présent for our belief pictures of the longest meal one ever knew, Hitlerian marches for children, every kind of sport— swimming, horse-riding, shooting (without killing)— Christmas trees with plated bells, and cuddling in the dark as the best that an Almighty and Infinitely Perfect God can provide for those who hâve served Him well during their life on earth is little short of blasphemy. The religions mind revolts from it. It dishonours God. It is a patent lie.

[66] IV

PER ARDUA AB ASTRIS

H aving read the preceding chapter on Heaven, the Summer Land, the Blue Island and the 1 Retura or Stay Sphere/ the reader may be indined to ask î If these descriptions of life afïer death are not communicated by spirits who hâve passed over, where do they corne from i He may aîso ask how any spirit-messages are to be accounted for. Briefly, the answer is t They practically ail corne from îhe wishM thinkmg of either the medium or the sitters, * The sitters i 4 Yes, the sitters— those forming the séance circle, 4 But how i 4 By telepathy— or» if you prefer so to call it, by thought-transference. 4 Well, for thinking out loud l * Let me indulge in a short preliminary digression^ The practice of modem SpirituaHsm begm in the United States of America ; and North America was aiso the birthpîace of Western Theosophy. The terminology of Theosophy, with îts 4 auras * and * astral bodies * and * spheres r of post-Hfe exist ence, was readily adopted by American Spiritualists. It soon became part of the jargon of ail Western occult ' religions/ From the U.SJL it passed to England, and was welcomed by English Spiritualists ; and it is to-day to be found in use amongst the majority of Continental Spiritualists. For quite a time Theosophists and Spiritualists were more than merely sociable and friendly. Then came the Leadbeater scandai. Rather than be mixed up in so sordid an affair the English Spiritualists dropped ail association with Theosophy, As between cuits the rupture was complets ; but the terminology of Theosophy was, to a certain estent, retained by Spiritualists, For a time they had not a satisfactory vocabulary of their own. r^ter, they fell in with the more modem worship o f 4 science4 ; [67] SPÎRITUALISM

évolution was in the air— hence ail the present-day Spiritualist jargon of 4 évolution ' and _4 progressé Then, as one of the periodic météore in the Spiritualist firmament, tfaere burst across the sky of their world the light and effulgence of Sir Oliver Lodge, The theory of Ether as interpenetrating ail things had been mooîed for some years ; and quite a few people got used to the idea ; but when, three years before the loss of his son, Raymond, Sir Oliver gave the inaugural address in 1913 to the British Association in Birmingham, he both startled the scientific world and rejoiced the hearts of Spiritualists by including in his address on 4 Ether * and radio-activity a confession of faith in Spiritualisai. Ether he declared to be ‘ not matter, but material4 (non é materia, ma é materiaîe) ; 4 it is the universal medium of communication between worlds and infinitésimal partides 4 (ed é il mezzo uni versale di comraunicazione fra mondi e particelle infinitesime). [I quote and translate from the report of the address as given in Filosofia délia Scienza, Feb. 15,1914.] He speaks o f4 radiation/ 4 ethenal motion4 or 4 etherial movement 4 ; 4 putréfaction 4 ; 4 fermentation 4 ; 4 évolution 4 ; 4 vibrations 4 and 4 waves/ There followed from his pen, three years later, the book Ray mond, Now everybody knew vaguely of 4 ether 4 and 4 waves 4 and 4 radiation4 and 4 vibrations/ They came so readily in use that people began to talk of 4 brain-waves/ even, Sir Oliver was the new luminary in the Spiritualist world. The terms that he used proved a gift from the gods of sdence for the Spintualistic vocabulary. Sdentific terms of Greek origm had already become poptilar *. phonograph, gramophone, tdegraph, téléphoné were almost as much EngÜsh as the few remaining Anglo-Saxon words to be found in our hybrid tongue. A further enrichment of the Spiritualist vocabidary came as a windfaE to supplant the Theosophical terms and théories, in the additional Greek words provided by the learned members of the London Dialectical Sodety, now the Sodety for Psychical Re search ; 4 telekinesis 4 ; 4 teleplasm,4 4 teiaesthesia/4 4 telepathy,4 4 ectoplasm.4 F. W. H. Myers, in his Human Personality, gives a spécial vocabulary of 5 octavo pages. Many of them hâve as much value as explanations of Spiritualist phenomena as, had Mesmeds 4 fluid-magnetism4 ; yet they corne as trippingly to the tongues of many Spiritualists as did 4 Abracadabra4 for more andent magicians. Modem Spiritualism must be up to date ; and when sdence [68] PER ARDUA AB ASTR 1S seems to mie the day sdentific ternis must be adopted, Thou^h some Spiritualists may still refer to the * spheres' of progress in the Summerland whilst others make them different islands, it îs no longer the * astral shell/ or the * astral body f or the * Atm ic plane * to whîch they refer— no ; Lodge won the day with his e t h e r and his v i b r a t i o n s , Now ail is 4 etherial/ As we hâve seen in the prevïous chapter the 4 etherial substance * of the body rises to heaven ; dgars and whiskey are manufactured from the ether of the Summerland ; 4 essences and ethers and gases * seem to be the basis for ail things produced there, from bricks to clothing ; and houses hâve their coloured vibrations, Even on this earth médiums hâve distinctive vibrations. With that evidence before us it is not far-fetched to conclude that either the medium imagines that by utilising Sir Oliver's pet theoretical terms in her description of life in the Summerland she will the better convince and please her important sitter ; or, to give an alternative explanation, that Sir Oliver’s prédilection for the terms of his theory was communicated to the mind of the medium by telepathy. Spiritualists do not like that word 4 telepathy/ They will accept and u§e frequently such similar words as teleplasm and telekmesis} but telepathy is almost tahu— it is too accurate a term to use in explaining the origin of alleged spirit-messages. Y et a man so prominent in the study of psychic phenomena as was F. W. H, Myers wrote in his Introduction to Human Person- ality : * This work of mine is in large measure a critical attack upon the jtnain Spiritist position, as held, say, b y M r. A . R . Wallace, its most eminent living supporter— the belief, namely, that ail or almost ail supernormal phenomena are due to the action of the spirits of the dead. By far the larger proportion, as I hold, axe dm to the action of the st il l e m b o d i k d spirit of the agent or per expient himself * (p. 7). That is what I main tain ; and to support that view is the object of this chapter. Now, what predsely do we mean by the word ' telepathy ’ i Telepathy, to quote F. W. H. Myers, is 4 The communication of impressions of any kind from one mind to another, independently of tlje recognised channels of sense ’ ; or, as I would put it : the transmission of the thoughts or impressions of one person to the mind of another, without the use of the usual means of com munication between mind and mind. Ordinarily we use vocal sounds (speech) ; symbols (hand- C69] ’ SPIRITUALI5M wrîting) ; signa (gestures ; the deaf and dttmb 4 alphabet *) ; or facial expressions, in order to express our thoughts or feelings to another person* But telepathy (or thought-transference) dis penses with ail these* The thoughts are transmitted directly ftom one mînd to another without the use o f Sound, symbol or sïgo. The siraplest examples of this are provided by what is calîed 1 The W illing Game/ Both Professer Sir William Barrett and Professor James H, Hyslop cite striking instances of telepathy* To avoid having the theory of ‘ muscle-reading '— which used to be alleged in order to expîain the mystery of the willing-game— adduced as an alternative to telepathy, Professor Barrett conducted a sériés of experiments wherein there was no physical contact whatsoever between the ■* operator * and the subject or * percipient/ He wrote the following account in Chapter V of his book Psychical Research* Âfter alluding to his investigations during a period of five years, he suys : * One of these cases which seemed quite inexplicable on any theory of muscle-reading, and which was personally investigated during Easter 1881, was that of the children of the late Rev* A* M* Creery, a respected clergyman in Buxton* This case is histori- cally of importance, for it led to the first clear evidence of thought transference m the normal State of the perdpient* Stringent précautions were taken to avoid any information being conveyed to the subject through the ordinary channels of sense* For example, one of the perdpients, Maud, then a child of twelve years old, was taken to an empty adjoining room and both doors dosed. I then wrote down some object h'kely to be in the house, which we (the family together with myself) silently thought of* No one was allowed to leave his place or speak a Word. The predpient had previously been told to fetch the object as soon as she ** guessed " what it was, and then return with it to the drawing- room where we were seated. Quoting again from my communica tion to Nature— 1 ** Having fastened the doors I wrote down the following artides, one by one, with the resuîts stated— haïr brush, correctly brought ; wimglm, correctly brought ; orange, correctly brought ; toasting- fork, wrong on the first attempt, right on the second ; apple, correctly brought; knife, correctly brought ; smoothing-iron, correctly brought; tumbler, correctly brought; cup, correctly brought ; mm?, faüure. Then names of towns were fixed on, [y©] PER ARDTJÂ AB ASTRIS the name to be called out by the child outside the closed door o£ the drawing-room, but guessed when fastetied into the adjoimng room. In this way, Liverpool, Stockport, Lancaster, York, Manchester, Macclesfîeld were ail correctly given; Letcester was said to be Chester ; Windsor, Birmingham and Canterbury were failures.” 4 The success obtained in these and other experiments could not be explained by mere lucky guesses nor by involuntary guid ance by those who knew, for these was no contact, and in sonie of the trials (as in the foregoing) the percipient was out of sight and hearing. Under such drcumstances any secret code of signais between children would hâve been practically impossible to carry out; moreover, in several successful experiments no one but myself knew what was to be donc/ I stated earüer on that this book is not intended to be an essay on psychical research ; hence I shah not feel called upon to multiply examples of telepathy. The above experiments by Sir William Barrett are referred to merely as an illustration of what is meant by thought-transference within the purpose of this book, Readers who might wish to know more about it will find a wealth of material on the subject in the volumes of the Pro- ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, W hat I wish to emphasise here, is that the mental phenomenon known as telepathy is an estabüshed fact. That a few * last ditchers * amongst the out-and-out materîalist professons of phyrical science may stdl refuse to accept the phenomenon as proven means nothing. The history of hypnotîsm provides us with a glaring example of stubborn refusai on the part of sdentists to face facts. The fîrst Medical Commission appointed to examine the daims of Mesmerism was set up in 1784. In its findings it admitted the cures but rejected the magnetk-ftuid theory of Mesmer, Forty- two years later another French Medical Commission reported in favour of the mesmeric cures— but the report was suppressed by the medical faculty. In place of the * magnetic-fluid * theory of Mesmer, Dr, A, Bertrand introduced the idea of * suggestion f as the influenemg element in the various mesmeric phenomena which were now found to include the remarkable induction of complété anæsthesia in the patients. Again the medical faculty discredited the results obtained. Next, Dr. Elliotson became the protagonist of the cause of f 71 1 SPIRITUALISM mesmerism in England. H e was ostracised by the medical profession and lost his practice. Most noteworthy of alî was the case of Dr. Esdaile, Presidency Surgeon of Calcutta, who performed over 250 major operations on patients whom he had anæsthetised by mesmerism. He too lost his appointment owing to the stubborn opposition of the medical faculty. I mention these cases merely to show how deeply rooted and fixed opposition can become in the minds of people with pre- conceîved ideas as to the value of any theory which has not hitherto corne within their expérience or knowledge. What Sir Oliver Lodge termed 1 orthodox science ' is not always right ; ' Science/ too, can be guilty of intolérance despite the wrecks of hypothèses and théories that strew the paths of its history. ït would be prématuré to add any further lesson from the reports in this morning’s newspapers regarding the daims of Professer Félix Ehrenhaft to hâve discovered magnetic current— a discovery which, if confirmed, was stated by Sir Lawrence Bragg Cavendish, professer of experimental physics at Cambridge, to lead to * a complété reversai of ail our présent thought * (Daily Mail, Jan. 17, 1944). In his introduction to Occultism and Common-Sense (by Beckles Willson) Professor Barrett writeÿ : * It is amusing now to recall the fierce outery aroused by the paper I read at the British Assoda- tion meeting in 1876, when, after narrating certain apparently transcendental phenomena I had witnessed, I asked that a committee of sdentific men should be appointed to investigate the preliminary question of the possibility of thought-transference. (The Spectator, I believe, alone, generously reported me, and in an éditorial article on the 30th September 1876 expressed the hope that ** the British Assodation would really take some action on the subject of the paper, in spite of the protests of the party, which we may call the party of superstitions incredulity ” * (p. xii). _ Hypnotism is accepted to-day by sdentists ; it has an estab- lished place in various forms of mental treatment. Psychiatrists of repute hâve recourse to it. What is it, then, that prevents the acceptance of the fact of telepathy by alî sdentists i Is it thdr ' superstiîious incredulity * i Is it because, as Professor Barrett puts it, * this particular field of psychical investigation belongs to an order other than that with which sdence deals * i Or is it their Zolaesque détermination not to admit the existence of the huraan soûl as a spiritual entity i [72] PER ARDUA AB ASTRIS Evidence of thought-transference from the hypnotiser îo the subject is provided in hundreds and hundreds of cases* A simple and perfect example of this is given ns by Professor Barrett in his book Psychîcal Research, to whîch reference has already been made. He experimented with an Irish village-girl with notable results* He says : * One of the most interesting experiments was made when in answer to my request that she should visit London and go to Regent Street, she correctly described the optician's shop of which I was thinkùig* As a matter of fact, I found, upon subsé quent inquiry, that the girl had never gone fifty miles away from her remote Irish village* Nevertheîess, not only did she correctly describe the position of this shop, but told me of some large crystals of Iceland spar (" that which made things look double **) which I knew were in the shop, and that a big clock hung outsîde over the entrance, as was the case* It was impossible for the subject to gain any information of these facts through the ordinary channels of sense. M y friend, the late M r. W , E. Wilson, F.R.S*, was présent when these experiments were made in his father’s house, and in answer to my request he subsequently wrote to me confirming them, saying, u We proved beyoad ail doubt that the subject was able to read the thoughts of the mesmerizer*” ' The italics in that account are mine t they are intended to call attention to the fa et that the girl did not tell Professor Barrett anything he did not know himself ; she did not mention, for example, the time by the clock which hung outside the shop, nor whether it was goiag or not* It was not a case of her reading his thoughts— as Mr* Wilson put it— but of her mind receiving the thoughts that were in Professor Barrettes mind. Sir William goes on to give in detail a number of experiments with another hypnotised subject* * In these early experiments,* he writes, 41 noticed that the hypnotised subject responded to thought-transference even when a considérable distance and opaque objects intervened * (p, 76). These experiments were of the same nature as those described in his previous chapter wherein he dealt with THOUGHT-TRANS FERENCE IN THE NORMAL STATE OF THE PERCIPIENT* Now then, what I want to emphasise in reply to the question : Where do 4 spirit * messages, be they descriptions of the Suramer- land or merely messages in general, corne from i is that sinee telepathy is possible (a) in the normal State and (h) in the hypnotic C 73 1 SPIRITUAL ISM State without any invocation of the dmd, it is equally possible at séances, whetfaer the medium be in a normal State or in a trance* That such is not only possible but probable is admitted by leading Spiritualists themselves. For exampîe : Stainton Moses in bis Spirit Jdentity wrote (p. 7) : * The atmospherîc conditions are so variable and exercise so powerful au influence : the investigator is dépendent on the aid of those who farm the circie ; and each of these imports his own con ditions of error into the investigation ; these and other causes , . , reader his early pursuit of knowledge liable to every fluctu- ating degree of error/ What can this mean except that the mental * conditions of error ' are conveyed by thought transference (telepathy) to the medium and so colour the * messages ' given 4 In a section# addressed to Spiritualists only (pp. 31-32), on the ABSENCE OF précision in statement, he hints at similar influence : * Another cause of doubt is the extreme difficulté usually found in getting any facts precisely given, especially facts that are certainly external to the knowledge of the sitters.* Apply that to the descriptions of the Summer Land or the Blue ïsland t what knowledge hâve the sitters of life after death 4 In his almost impassioned appeal to Spiritualists to purge the movement, after a section on T he Purification of P ublic C ircles, the same author deals with T he M edium, and the N ature of M ediumship as follows : ' The medium is a mesmeric sensitive, and as such is amenable to every dominant influence brought to beat on him. He is the réceptacle of the several positive influences of the circie. If there be présent a positive mind filled with doubt it reacts on the medium. If there be a seoflmg, jeering spirit amongst those présent, it cuts into him like a knife. If an over-cîever person thinks he has detected or suspected fraud, that suspicion bites into the medium and u the iron enters into his soûl "— precious rusty iron it is too. If vice be présent, it reacts on him. If fraud suggests itself, he feels it. He is the u wash-pot ” into which the collective feelings'and senti ments of the circie are collected. And more than this. He is the link between them and the spirits whom their mental States attract. The communications are pretty sure to be the re présentations of the mental State of the sitters : unless indeed a powerful and controlling spirit is charged to protect and neutralise adverse influence. . . . If suspicions and evil tempers are pre- E 74 î PER ARDUA AB ASTRIS domifiant, he is influenced in correspônding ways. A mesmerie sensitive, he cornes under the dominant influence, and too often represents the wishes and thoughts of those who surround hîta r (.ffigker Aspects, pp. 89-90)* It is interesting, and up to date, to refer in this connection to an article published in the Sunday Graphie (Jan* 9, 1944), re- portxng an interview with M r. George Bernard Shaw. GJBUS, is reported as saying : 4 My expérience of spiritualism began when I was a smaîl boy. . . / He then refers to Oliver Lodge and Conan Doyle. 4 1 am quite sure that neither of them ever cheated at a séance, Weli, I hâve. I used to say that unless everybody cheated as hard as they could, and the results obtained went beyond those that could be obtained by cheatittg, the séances could prove nothing. 4 Accordingly I cheated, and was amazed at my success (I am no conjurer) and by the discovery that the more cultivated, clever and imaginative my victims were, the more easy it was to cheat them— or rather to induce them to cheat themselves/ The Rev. William Stainton Moses does not stand alone in making such admissions. They hâve been made by continental Spiritualists also, Frau Maria Von Bergen, the représentative of the Swedish Spiritualists, after dedaring that it was useless to attempt to found a religion on the results of spirit communica tions 4 because they vary almost infinitely, especially in these days/ gives as one of the reasons for these contradictions in teaching that they may be due 4 to the hidden influence of the drcle/ Dr. Gustav de Gaj, the Jaska-Croatian SpirituaHst leader, quotes the five classes of fraud on the part of médiums as detailed by Du Prel, and adds two more of his own explanations of fraud, the second of which being : 4 Genuine fraud on the part of the medium dm to mental suggestion from the members of the séance/ He goes further, and develops the idea that thought transference from the sitters can cause ail kinds of fraudulent phenomena. He quoted Thomson Jay Hudson as stating in The Law of Psychic Phenomena that ' persons who are hypnotisable can be constantly controîled by suggestion/ 4 Amor y Progress/ the SpirituaHst Sodety of Mexico, in a paper issued by them on mediumship, also admits in determining the causes of fraudulent phenomena, one of them to be * the influence of the sitters themselves/1 1 In this connection it might be of interest to point out that amnging anonymously for séances with a real medium need be no safeguard, The consultant wül pass on his name by telepathy. [7 5 ] SPÏRITUALÏSM Therc is no need to multiply further the references to such admissions. The fact is there : telepathy is an actual occurrence. Thought transference by telepathy Irom the minds of the sitters at a circîe incontestably does take place. The medium 4 is the “ wash-pot ” into which the collective feelings and sentiments of the circle are collected/ When in addition to îhat admission we get the further statement that as a resuit * The communications are pretty sure fo be the représentations of the mental State of the sitters/ we are perfectly justified in asking : If that be so, o f w h a t u s e w h a t e v e r a r e t h o s e communications 4 What value hâve they as spirit communications 4 Such admissions, especially those of Mr. Stainton Moses, plainly damn the public circles. Who go to those circles but the curious, the credulous, and those who ought not to go, such as Stainton Moses's 4 sorrowing widow, whose agonised mind is not in the best frame for accurate judgment * ; the bereaved whom Sir Oliver Lodge warned to keep away. Yet these last are the very ones most attracted by the * Church Notices f that appear in the Spiritualist press, and they are the ones at the présent time who almost haunt such services. These so-called 4 Church Services * are nothing else but public séances, and they hâve about as rauch true worship of Almighty God in their composition as a Voodoo rite. George Valiantine would recite the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of his fraudulent séances with Mr. H. Dennis Bradley ; and the fraudulent Mrs. Murphey-Lydy did the same. The singing of : 4 God of the granité and the rose I Soûl of the sparrow and the bee 1 The mighty tide of being flows Through ail Thy créatures back to Thee * would îiever turn any public séance into a genuine act of worship of the Almighty. (The verse of the 4 hymn * is taken from § 339 of the Spiritualist Lyceum Marnai.) The late H. Dennis Bradley believed in spirit communication as strongly and as firmly as did the Rev. Stainton Moses, and yet we find him writing : * SpirituaHstn is now being foisted on the public as a religion. I assert deliberately that as a religion it is a farce. Tinpot little church es are being erected ail over the country ; irresponsible spiritualistic tub-thumpers are appointing themsdves as preachers of a new gospel ; dud clairvoyants are giving banal exhibitions at their church services under the blas- L76] PER ARDUA AB ASTRIS phemous guise of spirituality. Boring and Ul-written hymns are sungj hypocritical hymns are intoned by vulgar and crafty médiums ; and the name of God is dragged into abysraal mud* (. . . And After, p, 392)* How cm these public séances be of any use i And the bigger the attendance the less chance is there of getting * successful descriptions and spirit messages.* This is what a medium, who daims, in 1931, to * hâve been acquainted with Spiritualism for nearly thirty years,* has to say on the subject. It is Mr, Horace Leaf, F.R.G.S., writing on * Spiritualism and Christianity ' in The Two Worlds (Feb.6,1931), Mr. Leaf's name has been familiar to me for over thirty years. He himself appeared on many a platform and conducted 4 De- veloping Classes,* at home, and public classes. In the previous chapter I mentioned the discussions conducted at AU Soûls' Church Room, Langham Place, with regard to the discussion on 4 Spiritualism by clergymen and ministers * of the Protestant dénominations— not of a l l dénominations, please, Mr. Leaf. Referring to that same meeting, Mr, Leaf writes : 4 Only brief reports of the ministerial gathering hâve been published, but these convey the impression that the case for Spiritualism was weU stated, and in the end it was dedded to hold a meeting at which a clairvoyant wiU be invited to demonstrate 44 how spirit messages are reeeived." This wÜl he no easy task, and we extend to the medium hold enough to accept this invitation our best wishes for a successful démonstra tion. My opinion is, that no matter how well-intentioned the rev. gentlemen may be, conditions will not be easy ' (my italics). 4 A few years ago I attended a conférence held in London by the Church of England to discuss Spiritualism, and was appaUed by the ignorance and resentment of some of the clergymen. If there prevails at the forthcoming meeting anything like the same spirit, it wiü require a perfect Samson among clairvoyants to give suc cessful descriptions and spirit messages.' I would ask my readers to note those words of M r. Horace Leaf : 4 no matter how well-intentioned the rev. gentlemen may be, conditions will not be easy ' (p. 84). En passant I might as weÛ State that M r. Leaf, in the same article, also says î 4 The teachings are always gravely affected b y the beliefs of the medium.' On the opposite page of the February 6,1931, issue of The Two Worlds is the report of an interview with Mrs. Estelle Roberts. It

[773 SPIRITUALISM

is headed t T he Fa it s of â G reat M edium» 4 She was the great sensation of the great memorial meeting held in tlie Royal Albert Hall, London, a few days after the death of Sir Arthur Caaaa Doyle.4 I may hâve some further comment to make later on their interview. What concems the présent chapter is that J* L., the contributor of the article, after a very laudatory descrip tion of the powers of Mrs. E. Roberts, says : 4 Spiritualiste are always talking about44 conditions ” at their meetings and séances. Mrs. Roberts does not mind much about conditions. Though it is generaUy agreed that a large hall crowded by ail types of people is about the worst place for obtaining evidential psychic phenomena. . * / So there you hâve it i 4 Spiritualiste are always talking about 44 conditions 44 at their meetings and séances4—by way of excuse for failure, I présumé ; M r. Horace Leaf despairs almost of getting 4 successful descriptions and spirit messages 4 at a meeting where 4 well-intentioned 4 rev. gentlemen are présent ; and J. L . tells us that4 it is generaîly agreed that a large hall crowded by ail types of people is about the worst place for obtaining evidential psychic phenonena*4 Then why continue to hold the meetings in large halls i If the presence of weh-intentioned rev. gentlemen is going to queer the pitch, what is it going to be like when people o f4 ail types4 are présent i Nearly every condition that can ruin a séance is présent ; doubt, curiosity, fickleness, hostüity, credulousness and the xest . . . not to mention the possible adverse 4 atmospheric conditions.4 In addition to these adverse conditions there remains the very important fact, which is also admitted by one leading Spiritualist after another, that psychic phepomem are not always4 on tap/ They cannot be produced at wifi. Let me assure any Spiritualist readers, once again, that I am not writing 4 without the book.4 I quote two statements (many others could be given), one from the Continent ; one from an Engiish medium. M . Pillaut, an outstanding personality in French Spiritualist drcles, put, and answered himsdf, these two questions at the Congrès Spirite Universel at Geneva— regarding the medium : 4 Est-il le maître absolu de ses facultés mediummques i — Non, puisqu'il ne peut les mettre en pratique qu'autant qu'à est actionné par une psychose adéquate à la mise en œuvre de ses facultés. PER ARDUA AB ASTRIS — Suffit-il qu'un médium et que les personnes assistant à une séance de médiumnité le désirent, en fassent la demande, pour que les facultés médiumniques du médium soient actionnés î — Non, il faut que l'Esprit ou les Esprits désincarnés disposés à cet effet, le veuillent, le puissent, ou sans cela aucune manifesta tion ne se produira ' (p. 107). Mr. H. Dennis Bradley, who had an unshakeable beüef in spirit communication, wrote : ‘ I hâve had many years of inten sive mediumsbip, but I bave never before heard the assertion made : u You will immediately hear a voice respond.” AU my expérience has shown that it is impossible to tum on the psychic tap at will ; especially is this impossible in ail the cases of genuine phenomena ' (. . . And After, p. 274). This very fact that spirit phenomena cannot be produced at will is adduced by Spiritualists themselves as an excuse for even the most notable médiums resorting to fraud. A striking example of the inability of médiums to produce phenomena at wül is fumished by Mr. Harry Price in his Leaves from a Psytikisds Case-Book (pp. 351, ss.). It is the case of 4 a wonderfui psychic,' Frau Matylda Strzetuska, whose phenomena were said to range * from spirit voices ta matérialisations, and from psychic raps to lévitations.' Mr. Price says t * I wiU not weary the reader with the details of the séances, as nothing whatever happened. We sat solidly every night— Sundays incîuded— for three weeks, and not a single phenommon (genuine or otherwise) was witnessed The éditons and proprietors of Spiritualist newspapers must know this as well as anyone, Is it honest of them, then, to publish column after column of ' Church Notices ' or 4 Society Advertisements ' announdng public séances in the way they do { Can they guarantee that at precisely 3.30 there will be a genuine 4 Public Transfiguration in fuU light ’ i Can they guarantee that between 10--3 on a Saturday, or 12-3 on a Tuesday at Finsbury Park, and between 11.30 and 4.30 at Cuffley there mil be genuine ' healing by S w iftfoot ' i What assurance can they give that ail the conditions will be good ; that there wül be no * weU- intentioned rev. gentlemen ' présent ; and that, though large halte are the worst places for obtaining evidential phenomena, in every hall or church or temple where the advertised séances are to be held, guaranteed evidential phenomena wiU take place i Further on in this chapter I shall give a list of over thirty reasons, [ 7 9 ] SPIRITUALISM reasons advanced by Spiritualists themselves, which militate against successful results and actually îead to fraud— in fact they are excuses to «plam fraudulent phenomena, Some of tbetn may be given as excuses for faiiure or imtrustworthmess in the case of private drcies ; but they can nearly ail be applied to the public séance as well. One can understand the attitude of Mr. Harry Price exposing fraudulent mediumship ; but when it cornes to the fulmimting demmdatiom of the Rev. Stainton Moses, Dr. J. M. Peebles, and H. Dennis Bradley— ali of them enthusiastic believers in spirit communication— then there must be something very wrong about public séances. * Yes, yes/ some Spiritualist may interject, ' that may be true of the public meetings for phenomena, with their promiscuous gathering of sitters ; but what about the private, home drcies i They are different/ Are they so very different i Cannot thought-transference or îelepathy take place at a private séance as easiiy as at a public one { Is there not even a greater chance of such telepathy in the home drde, where a positive or dominant mind amongst the few sitters would hâve less difficulties to contend with than amongst hundreds or thousands in a large hall { We hâve already seen how * the positive influences of the drde can influence the medium/ That can happen, that does happen, in the private drde also. The Lodge phraseology is an illustra tion of this. Hyslop, Barrett and Myers in their experiments dealt only with private cases. They did not concern themselves at aÜ with Caxton Hall or Albert Hall or Grotrian Hall or Clarendon Hall meetings; and ail three— men of painstaking character— emphasised the actuaHty and power of telepathy. In fact F. W. Myers, in his book Htrnan Personality, says ; ' Telepathy, in short, must be the prerequisite of ail these supemormal phenomena. / Actual expérience, as we shall presently see, confirms this view of the place of telepathy. For when we pass from the induced to the spontaneous phenomena we sHall find that these fllustrate before ail else this transmission of thought and émotion directly from mind to mind ' (p. 183, one-volume édition), The experiments conducted by Mr, Gurney, Professor Sidgwick, Dr, Herdman and others give convindng évidence of the actuality of telepathy, The private séances of Dennis Bradley, Lord Charles Hope, Madame Dard, Frau Maria von Bergen, Dn. CBo] PER A R D U A AB ASTRIS Neville^ W bynant, Senhor Lui? de Mattos— these, too, afford multipHed epmples of telepathy with their respective médiums» If the attitude of mind of weîl-intentioned rev» gentlemen can influence adversely the production of spirit phenomena, so too can the dominatmg positive mind of any sitter at a private séance. Putting aside for the moment the very questionable identity of such private * guides ’ as Imperator, Pheneas, White Hawk, Silver Birch, Pat OfBrien, D r. Barnett, Uvani, Swiftfoot, Abduhl Latif and pantomimic characters like John King, with their more questionable authority, we hâve presented to us by Spiritualists themselves, as excuses for faulty or fraudulent messages, quite a long Hst of explanations. To the Spiritualist thèse may seem bona fide excuses. To the non-Spiritualist they simply constitute further reasons for denying the genuineness of the alleged spirit messages» In his Study of Mediumship—Etude sur la Médiumnité, Monsieur Wibin, a leading Belgian Spiritualist, editor of Le Courrier Spirite Belge, gives as an explanation of the incohérence of some spirit messages that it is due to a struggle between the * spirit * who wants to control the medium and the medium who resists going under control. M. Wibin also trots forth another excuse ; that of the absence of a fully sympathetic circle of sitters. M. Bénégech, in an address on ‘ L ’action combinée des médiums et des Esprits dans les phénomènes psychiques -The combined action of both médiums and Spirits m psychic phenomena— talks about * projections from the medium hîmself ’ ; 4 latent meraory ' ; * thought-transference ’ ; * the content of the subconsdous mind of the medium ' ; the difficulties the spirits hâve to overcome since they must work in an atmosphère bristling with obstacles (un milieu hérissé d*obstacles). These latter, I suppose, indude the * intercosmic obstacles ’ of Professor Hyslop. The Hst of obstacles against getting any genuine message through is a formidable one : From the Summer Land : 1. The overwhelming prépondérance of different astral in fluences (Frau von Bergen) ; 2. Fraud on the part of the Invisible Agent, with or without the consdousness of the medium (Du Prel) ; 3. Fraud on the part of the Invisible Agent without any con currence on the part of the medium (Du Prel) ; 4. Mental suggestion from the Spirit Agent leading the medium to commit fraud (Gustav de Gaj) ; [81] F SPmiTUALISM 5. Undeveioped and tricksy human spirite (Stainton Moses) ; 6. Evil spirite as distinct from human earth-bound spirite (Mijnheer Beversluis, Frau Von Bergen, Monsieur Béziat, Mr. H* Dennis Bradley, etc.) ; 7. Intercosmic obstacles (Hyslop, etc.) ; 8. Other still more baffling impediments, unimaginable by us in our ignorance of what the conditions are in the spirit-world (Barrett). From the Cirde : g, Faulty linking of the sitters (Price, Bradley, etc.) ; 10. Hostile element amongst the sitters (Moses, Oaten, Price) ; 11. Doubting element amongst the sitters (Moses, Oaten) ; ia. Evil affinities— 1 like attracts like ' (passim) ; 13. Conflicting influences (Lyceum Manual) ; 14. Cheating on the part o f die sitters (G . B . Shaw) ; 15. Unsympathetic attitude of the sitters (Wibin) ; 16. Unconsdous hints from the sitters (Hyslop) ; 17. Manifold complications in the mental world affecting any accès» of outeide influences at ail (Hyslop) ; 18. Atmospheric conditions (Moses, Price). On the part of the Medium : 19. Extrême susceptibility of the medium whose * processus * can be neutralised by a mere nothing (irn rien) (Mme Darel) ; ao. Bad health of the medium (Amor y Progreso) ; 31* Physiological defects (Confederacion Espafiola) ; 33. The professional medium îs likely to cheat for money (Confederacion Espaüola, Amor y Progreso) ; 33. Consdous fraud (passim) ; 34* Unconsdous fraud (passim) ; 35. The very personality of the medium (waywardness, etc,). ■* AJ1 communications are coloured more or less therebyt (Kersey in Lyceum Manual) ; 36. Incomplète passivity of the medium (Wibin, Barrett) ; 37. Incomplète development of the medium (il faut consacrer des années à développer un médium) (M. Delanne). [Note : M . Delanne déclarés that he and his friends spent thirty years trying to get genuine médiums ; and that they still found it difficult to get them] j 38. Résistance of the medium to spirit-control (Wibin) ; 39. Wrong dothing worn by the medium (Wibin) ; 50. Wrong jewelry worn by the medium (Wibin) ; 3:1, Wrong colours used in séances (Wibin) ; 3a. Want of harmony between the vibrations of the medium and the manifesting spirite (Mme Darel) ; [Sa] PER AEDUA AB ASTRÏS

33, But the cream o£ ail is given us by n o less a spirit-guide than * Red C lr n â : 4 Red Cloud * manifesta through the mediumshîp of one of England's most notable médiums, Mrs, Estelle Roberts, He also functions for a séance-drcle at Douai, in France, He talks 4 pidgin * English, French and Arabie ; and bis explanation of the fraudulent behaviour of a * voice and materialising medium ' who was caught producing 4 spirit-music ' standing in lier stockinged-feet on a chair and playing a toy harp, was thaï the blatant fraud was due to the influence of * Roman Catholic spirits from whom she had had trouble before * 1 i 1 And that was the explanation offered to Mr, Harry Price by the editor of a Spirituaîist newspaper (Leaves from a Psychist's Case-Book), 4 Eh ! they're a bad lot them Cafflicks ; even when they’re dead they won't He down/ M. Bénésjech was right, The whole business is hérissé d'obstacles. I hâve endeavoured to indicate a few presented in Spirituaîist writings, There may be more, not speciaüsed, included in the 4 intercosmic obstacles ' of which we hâve no con ception, Sufficient for my purpose are the thirty-three thereof, The Hst is a formidable one. Even with those that are given we are left wondering whether there is ever a rime when not one of these difficulties is présent and we are definitely sure of an authenric and genuine message from a really identifiable human soûl that bas 4 passed over/ * Identifiable '—-that is the important question. Were it possible at any séance, private or pubfic, to secure complété absence of each and every one of the thirty-three obstacles listed above—intercosmic obstacles ; adverse atmospheric conditions ; fraud î telepathy ; physiological defects ; unsympathetic sittersj and the rest—there would still remain the nightmarish burden of proving the Identity of the communicating Intelligence. Putting aside the phenomena that can be or might be explained as due to fraud, trickery, mal-observation, telepathy, etc., even the most confirmed materialist enquirer in the domain of Psychical Research is forced to admit that there is a residuum of phenomena that seem to be explainable only on the theory of the action of unknown Intelligences, The Spirituaîist theory is that these Intelligences are the soûls of the departed (of those who hâve 4 passed over *). CathoHcs—and others—are entitled to ask : 4 Are they the smüs [83] SPIRITUALISM of the deaâ i ' Hâve they ever been incontestabîy identified as such i AU but Spiritualists would answer t No* Eveil amongst Spiritualists the question of the identity of the manifestihg Intelligences is adœitted to be the main difficulty, the crux of their position. In hîs book On the Threshold of a New World of Thought Pro fesser Sir William Barrett says : * For my own part it seems not improbable that the bulk, if not the whole, of the physîcal mani festations witnessed in a spiritualistic séance, are the product of fmman-like, but not really human, intelligences/ Spiritualists like to quote Sir William Crookes with regard to his expériences. We hâve an account of his conclusions given by Mr. de Vesme, who wrote a history of SpirituaKsm. He stated in Annals, July 1907 : * Lastly, we are obliged to recognise, with Spiritualist writers themselves, such as Myers and Aksakof, that we do not see how we can arrive at establishing, in a positive manner, the i d e n t i t y of a “ spirit.” . . . Moreover, why should we stick as obstinately to the spirit-hypothesis, properly so-caUed i We know that Sir William Crookes, for instance, whilst he asserts that he has not been able to identify the so-caUed spirits as soûls of deceased persons, at least déclarés that he is persuaded that they are spirits independent of the psyché of the medium/ Stainton Moses was a convinced Spiritualist. He is stfll held in very high esteem by Spiritualists. Yet he wrote t * I am speaking to the esoteric body. . . , Speaking to such only, I désiré to clear the ground by a few preliminary considérations, the more necessary because a considérable portion of this work is devoted to an exclusive argument dealing only with one side of the question— the retum to earth of the spirits of departed humanity. I hâve no desire to stand committed to any narrow définition or limitation of the Intelligence at work, any more than I wish to ignore the great weight of evidence that goes to show that in a large number of cases the I n t e l l i g e n t O p e r a t o r is NOT the person he prétends to be ' (Spirit Identity, pp. 2, 3). Prof essor Camille Flammarion, who also ranks high in the esteem of the Spiritualists, dedared : * The innumerable observa tions which I hâve collected durïng more than forty years, ail prove tome the contrary. No satisfactory identification has been made * {Mysterbm Psychic Forces, p. 436). W e hâve seen that serious învestigators, some of them Spiritual ists held in high esteem by their own community, repeatedly

[ 8 4 3 PER A R D U A AB ASTRÏS refer to * personatmg spirits who as a hoax, or from malidous motives, or from a love of posturing under great names “ fool m to the top of our beat " . . . vain créatures strutting in borrowed plumes— Shakespeares who cannot spell, Bacons who cannot convey consecutive ideas * (M.A. Oxon). Are these really the soûls of our dead i Surely not ; unless they be soûls from helL In a leading article in Light, an official organ of Spiritualism, the editor admitted : 4 It is a fact that we cannot gainsay, that the hardest thing to prove 44 from the other sida ” is identity, And we know of no test that can déterminé it * (March 13, 1909)* Such being the convictions of so many leaders of the Spiritualist movement, can Catholics be fairly condemned for rejecting the Spiritualistic daims i So much for the 4 S>pirit-Messages ' ; but what are we to say about the physîcâl phenomena—lévitation, apports, raps, 4 spirit music/ trumpet voices and trumpet movements, etc. i Again we study the attitude of Spiritualists themselves. Judging by the reports of séances and by advertisements that appear in the Spiritualist press, the general body of Spiritualists seem to consider such phenomena as highly evidential of spirit influence. On the other hand quite a few leading Spiritualists deem them to be of no value whatever ; certainly of no value in proving immortality* It is in this line of phenomena that most frauds hâve been detected— they smack too much of conjuring and illusion. Most people can be taken in by conjurers or illusîonists who work on a fully-lighted stage ; how much easier is it to deceive in a faint light or in the dark. * The daim that the banjo-playing and furniture shufflîng, the antics and ineptitudes of the ordinary dark cirde are the work of our departed friends who take this remarkable method of proving to us their continued life and happiness, is so monstrous that a well-balanced mind recoils in disgust as from a profanation and a blasphemy/ These are not the words of a Catholic, nor of an opponent to Spiritualism ? they are the considered judgment of the Reverend Staînton Moses (M.A. Oxon.), who remained an ardent Spiritualist to his death. He condemns also ail * cabinet * phenomena and 4 the whole method of conducting matérialisation séances/ The latter he judges 4 to be erroneous, calculated to introduce éléments of uncertainty, and to produce the results which we are compeîled again and again to déploré ' (Higher Aspects, p . 16). [85] SPIRITUAL ÏSM He goes on î 4 Of the moral aspects of such a procedure I will say nothing. It is a fact well knawn to experienced Spiritualiste that the Spirits who are able to deal with gross matter so as to produce these physical manifestations are beings who are not possessed of a high moral consdousness* (Higher Aspects, P * l8)* When one reads of the mmute préparations made for 4 testf matérialisations, as, for instance, the exploratory examination of the medium Eva C. by Dr. Schrenk-Notzing and his associâtes, with the further detailed account of the parts of the medium's body from which the 4 teleplasma * (or ectoplasm) issued to form the materialised spirit, one is forced to ask ; Granting, for argu mentas sake, that the phenomena are gentuhe manifestations from the spirit-world, are such the conditions that normally healthy- minded people would choose in order to get into touch once more with their beloved dead i Is our ingrained sense of the holiness of heaven so low that we can conceive of no more reverential methods of communing with the dead than by tapping with tambourines, talking with trumpets, tarra-diddlmg with tables and tampering with naked médiums i— Surely not. So long as the bulk, if not the whole of the physical manifesta tions are 4 not really human intelligences' (Barrett), b u t4 spirits independent of the psyché of the medium * (Crookes), and that 4 in a large number of cases the Intelligent Operator is not the person he prétends to be (Moses) but rather 4 the contrary4 (Flammarion), we CathoHcs feel we are on good ground when, with these sdentific enquirers and Spiritualists themselves we say, that 4 the hardest thing to prove is i d e n t i t y 4 (Light), and that 4 no satisfactory identification has been made * (Flammarion). We hâve seen how thought-transference can easily account for most of the messages given. We hâve seen what numerous obstacles there are against getting evidential messages. We hâve seen that even when genuine messages may be received there still remains the very great and unsolved problem of establishing the identity of the communicating spirit. One other point remains to be considered, namely, the character of the messages. We hâve seen in the chapter on the4 Summer Land * how contradictory they can be in their descriptions of life beyond the veil. The contradictoriness is évident from the passages given. Not only are they contradictory, they are so vague, so wanting in [ 86] PER ÂRDUÂ AB ASTR 1S précision, so untrustworthy, and so frequently lying, as to be valueless, * Is there a lady here who knows Pierre, a French boy who stayed in London before the war i * asks Sergeant William Ellis, R.Â.S.C. 4 Yes/ says a lady from the back of the hall, and leams that Pierre is saying, in broken English, that he is unhappy about her health/ Thus we read in Jliustrated (Jan. i, 1944), in an article 4 Médiums take the Pbtform/ at the Caxton Hall, Westminster, There may easily hâve been a htmdred boys of the name of 4 Pierre * in London before the war— 4 Pierre * is nearîy as common a name for French boys as is 4 Jean/ Why could not Sgt, Ellis give the boy's surname i Mrs. Flavell followed her teacher, Mrs. Rolfe (from the London School of Psychoîogy). She pointed to the middle of the empty aisïe* 4 IVe got a boy here— an Air Force boy— saying he wants someone by the name of W inifred/ No surname again. ït would be interesting to know why. It is no use advancing the excuse that the meeting was a public one, and therefore the full names could not be given with propriety* We fmd exactly the same vagueness is évident in private séances. Here is a short extract from a sitting that Dennis Bradley had with Miss Hazel Ridley, an American trance medium. Miss Ridley's 4 guide ' is an Indian of the name of 4 Gray W olf/ In this séance the messages were supposed to be spoken by the spirit communicator himself after he took control of the medium. Medium : 4 Gert— Gertie— Gertrude— wants Mary/ Mrs. Austin Harrison (whose name is Marie, asked) 4 D o you want me i 4 Medium : 4 Yes, {Floundering about) MotheFs here/ Mrs. Harrison (querying— her mother being alive), Medium : 4 Mary's mother/ Mrs* Harrison could not place 4 Mary*s mother* so the medium tried something else* Medium : 4 Gertie/ We then asked who Gertie wanted to speak to* Medium : 4 Quite young— when she went over/ Nom of us could claim a young Gertie who went over* Medium : 41 will open a way for the others/ Medium î (a minute or two later, whispering) : 4 Elisabeth/ We tried to find out who Elisabeth was, but âiâ not succeed* And so on, and so on, with attempts at Henry, Hetty, Edie# [87] SPÏRITUALISM Elisabeth again, Maurice, and Mary's father, whose name could not be given (. . , And After, p p . 278-379)* Mrs* Mona Roife, Director 01 the London School ofPsychology, * stabbed her finger at a man with a lean face and untidy grey hair* ** There is a gentleman here with a very strong Creative force behind him» Hâve you done any sort of créative work s*" ' u No/' replied the gentleman. * Mrs* Roife pursed her üps. *' Any drawing, something créative with yottr hands i '' she qtieried. ■* u I work with my hands*" 4 “ You've been frustrated and held back. I feel there is some thing you are trying to grasp and you are putting a cîoud around yourself 4 Perhaps one ought not to be too severe in one's judgment on that séance* because, as M r. Alan Reeve, the writer of the report, informa us* Mrs. Roife said : ' I reaüy started these Sunday services to get a platform for my students to practise on* Several questions suggest themselves in regard to that statement : (1) Was Lord Dowding invited to act as chairman in order to be practised on i (2) Is a large hall crowded with ail types of people, and thus about the worst place for obtaining evîdential psychic phenomena, the best place for practising i (3) It takes years to develop a medium* says M, Delanne. Is it quite the thing* then* to put pupils on the platform for a public Sunday service i If such meetings would need* as M r. Horace L eaf deciared* * a perfect Samson among clairvoyants to give successful descriptions and spirit messages*' what hope could there be for the general public to get anything else beyond such useless stuff as î 4 Tell her that he cornes home very often* and would she please leave the photograph where it was first ' (lUustrated, Jan. 1* 1944)* Biackpooi-shore * gypsies ' could do as good, if not better. Is that sort of thing religion i Would even the singing of * Nearer* my God, to Thee/ with a subséquent rendering of a vocal solo, ‘ Hear my Frayer ' (Mendelssohn), make it a service that truly constitüted worship of the Almighty God i 4 Power,' the spirit guide of Mrs. Meurig Morris, gives an exhibition at the Fortune Theatre, Covent Garden. ' Great crowds again flocked ' there. * Though the doors of the theatre were timed not to open ttU 6 p m ., queues began to form at n a .m / The subject of the discourse to he given by * Power ' w,as chosen b y a member of the staff of the Daily Maü ; we présumé that the [ 8 8 ] PER A R D U A AB ASTRIS D aily Mail has a department of spécialiste in theology. An> way, 4 Power's * address 4 was followed with rapt attention ,— was it rapt bewilderment 4 because 4 Power’s * addresses are difficult for a reporter to follow. . . * His sentences, too, are often lengthy and involved, whilst the rapid flow of his language is remarkable f (The Two Worlds, Feb* 6,1931). Reporters are stipposed to be trained to report. A reporter from the staff of the D aily M a il (not a 4 correspondent/ mark you) should be tip to his job. And in this instance the reporter chose the subject of the address. Yet ail we are told in The Two Worlds is— not what the subject was ; nor what 4 Power * said about it— but that 4 44 Power's ” addresses are difficult for a reporter to fo llo w f Surely we may présumé that the reporter chose a subject about which he knew something, even if only a littîe. I, personally, would think he would propose a test-subject ; something about which he knew a good deal, It would seem that both the medium and her spirit-guide 4 Power * got lost ; hence the 4 lengthy and involved * sentences and the remarkably 4 rapid flow of language/ Further, if the D aily M a il reporter could not follow a discourse on a subject he himself had chosen, what chance had the audience which packed the theatre 4 We are told that the address 4 îeft a deep impression on the audience/ I think it would. Now we can understand why Stainton Moses declared, with regard to public séances, that the medium at such gatherings4 can give no trustworthy evidence f {Higher Aspects, p. 18). Now we can believe him when he says : 4 It is a common cause o f complaint amongst us that the communications received . . . are of an unsatisfactory nature. It is said that they are frequently trivial, contradictory, foolish (if not worse) and not such as command respect. . . . I am anxious not to overstate the argument. * * . Is it not so 4 I am disposed to think it is * {Higher Aspects, P* 88). Here is another witness, quite up to date and modem— the late M r. H . Dennis Bradley. He says : 4 When the medium starts to fish for information by asking questions of the sitter, in order to get a line to work upon, one may be safe in assuming the medium is not genuine/ At Mrs. Rolfe's meeting at the Caxton Hall it seemed to be ail fishing : 4 Is there a lady here who knows Pierre 4 * asks Sergeant Elüs. i m SPIRITUALISM

* Hâve you doue any Creative work s'— Any drawing, something créative with your hands i * queries the Director of die London School of Psychology, Mrs* Rolfe* # IV e got a boy here— an Air Force boy— saying he wants someone by the name of W inifred/ is the fishing remark of Mrs* Rolfe's pttpil (Mrs* Margaret Flavell). Surely to goodness 4 Pierre * and the * Air Force boy * did not travel sixty million miles to endeavour to get in touch with someone, out of a population of seven million, whose surname they did not know, and who might or might not hâve been at the Caxton Hall that evening 1 Accuracy, précision, means of identification, solid knowledge— ali these are missing from the spirit messages. Instead we are presented with contradictory reports, vague generahties, baaalxües, forgotten surnames and tru ly Delphic equivocal utterances* No wonder Professor Joad wrote, with regard to such messages : * One is driven to the conclusion that, even if ghosts hâve soûls, they certainly hâve no brains.* A nd who is to know, especially at a public séance, whether OR NOT THE MEDIUM HAS A CONFEDERÀTE— OR CONFEDERATES— IN THE BODY OF THE HALL TO GITE A HBLPÏNG HAND, SHOULD 4 BLACK DEVIL f OR 4 SCALPING KNïFE 4 BAIL IN HIS TASK, BECAUSE A D02ÆN OR MORE OF THE THIRTY-THREE OBSTACLES CONFRONT THE MEDIUM i V * WHISTLE, AND TLL COME*

* So Spiritualism is u ail my eye and Betty Martin ** i * W ell, not quite. * But you hâve just tried to make out a case to prove that there is no genuine communication with the dead/ W ith the dead, yçs ; as far as the dead died as the friends of Àknighty God. But please do not overlook the possibility that there may be other spirits in the life-to-come besides the soûls of the dead, Don't forget what I quoted already from M . de Vesme, or from Sir William Crookes, or from Sir William Barrett. Professor Barrett says : * For my own part it seems not im probable that the bvdk, if not the whole, of the physical manifesta tions witnessed in a spiritualistic séance, are the product of human-Hke, but not really human, intelligences/ De Vesme asks : ' Why should we stick so obstinately to the spirit-hypothesis properly so called i We know that S ir W illiam Crookes, for instance, whilst he asserts that he has not been able to idenùfy the so-called spirits as soûls of deceased persons, at least déclarés that he is persuadai that they are spirits indépendant of the psyché of the mediumi What do these three men mean if not that there are other spirits besides those who are the soûls of the dead i Th ey may not make any allusion to the evil character of these * human-Hke, but not really human, intelhgences/ but others, who beHeve in the actuahty of spirit-communication, do point out the evil nature of manifesting spirits, The late H . Dennis Bradley in the course of describing his chats with his pet medium, George VaHantine, said : * I alluded to my expériences when genuine phenoraena had occurred and yet at the same time the ** voice ” phenomena had obviously been produced by impersonating entities* I recounted to him certain expériences when evil influences had affected the results * (, * . A n d A fter, p, 367), [91] SPIRITUALISM Again, he says (p. 394) : 4 It fs tmquesdonable that in the lower grades of mediumsiup there are innumerable evil, lying and impersonating entities seeking channels of communication, with the resuit that many séances which are held are of a degrading character, and in such cases the practice is unhealthy and morbid/ Mijnheer Beversluis, a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church and a most ardent Spiritualist, in his lecture on * The rôle of Spiritualism in the religious évolution of humanity/ declared ; 1 As to the doctrine of Parsedsm— that of the perpétuai conflict of evil with good— of evil spirits with good spirits, that we find in ali the monotheistic religions, in Judaism, in Islamism and Christianity, in the doctrine of the existence of Satan and the devüs, who fight God and His angels, Spiritualism has reveakd that there really is a fight hetwem pure and impure spirits^ that there are diahoîic spirits that haie God* Mijnheer Beversluis is not the only reverend gentleman who espoused the cause of Spiritualism* There are too many others from Nonconformity and from die Church of England* Amongst the latter the Rev. William Stamtoh Moses stands out head and shoulders, a very Saul amongst the prophets, above the rest. M r. Moses, whilst endeavouring to make out as strong a case as he coufd against the existence of the Devil and his angels, was forced to admit, as a conclusion from his own Spiritualistic expériences, that they are not only the soûls of the dead who manifest at séances. * It is not for me to deny/ he wrote,4 that there are at work in Spiritualism agencies other than the departed souk of our kind * (Spirit Identity, p. 18). In his other book, Higher Aspects of Spiritualism (pp. 47-48), he writes of spirits * who seem to be on a lower plane than our own ; others are destitute of moral consciousness * ; and as an alternative to their being merely human spirits * fond of a hoax/ he dedares they must be * démons : devils in short, emissaries a i Satan * ; and he adds i * I do not see why such a devil as Caîvinists, Puritans and the narrow school of Evangelicals believe in should not account, on the most comprehensive prindpîes, for the whole mystery of evil.’' There is the point : 4 on the most comprehensive prindpîes *— that is the very situation that is burked and avoided. M r. Stainton M oses avoids it himself by denying the existence of the devil. He is content to call them * maüdous spirits* and * tricksy spirits * and * agendes other than the departed spirits of our kind/ So do Spiritualists in general argue that these 4 not really human intelli- [ 9^3 'WHISTLE, AND TLL COME* gences ’ ; these * spirits independent of the psyché of the medium * ; these * evil influences ' of whom Dennis Bradley speaks ; these spirits 4 who seem to be on a lower levei than our own/ are not deviîs, but only ‘ earth-bound spirits '— i.e, human soûls of low degree who hâve passed over, but who stili ciing, on account of their evil earthly lives, to earthly attractions. T o foîiow out the purpose of this book, which is to wam those who may be tempted to dabble with Spiritualism as to the kind of spirits they may contact, it might be useful to see what Spiritualists themselves hâve to say forther of the character of these earth-bound beings. For the moment we shaîl set aside the question as to whether or not they are deviîs in the theological meanmg of the word, and consîder them soleîy as * evil spirits/ The hésitant wouîd-be enquirer can then put the question to himself as to whether they are the type o f beings with whom anyone would realîy care to get in touch and to trust. To begin with we must keep in mind that the majority— if not ail— of Spiritualist writers insist on stating that death does not bring about an immédiate change of character in the soûl of the person who passes over. Andrew Jackson Davies declared in his Diakka and their Victims : 4 Death does nor change the character of a man, but simply strips off his masks and compris him to stand forth as he is, and he becomes after death the image of his own character/ D r. J. M . Peebles, commenting on this passage, wrote : 4 How true this independent clairvoyantes words ! “ Death does not change character/' Are there no evil-mmded, incorrigibiy malignant persons in this world i O nly the semi-brainless can rationally deny it. There must, therefore, be such undevrioped, conscienceiess beings in the world of spirits ' (Demonism of the Ages, p. 19). Tw o pages farther on he quotes with approval the words of Hudson Tuttle : * Ail spiritual beings were once human beings, and according to the fondamental principles of Spiritualism, by passing through the gateway of death hâve met with no change, except such as they hâve gained by growth. Hence they are as good and as evil as they were here, no more, no less, 4 If there are evil persons in this life there are in the next, and IF WE OPEN THE WAY FOR THEIR APPROACH AND ALLOW THEM TO INFLUENCE US, WE MUST EXPECT THEM TO MANIFEST THE SAME QUALITIES WHICH DISTINGUISHED THEM IN EARTH-LIFE.' [ 9 3 ] SPÏRITUAL 1SM Dr. J. M . Peebles, thât late vétéran American Spirituaîist, sent me, * with good wishes/ an autographed copy o£ his Demonism of the Âges, Spirit Obsessions so common ùi Spiritism, Oriental and Occidental Occultism, in which he had marked off several passages in order to call my attention to them. (Italics his.) After describing luridly the varions types of inhabitants of this earth, with its * 400,000,000 almond-eyed semi-enlightened Chinese ; some 350,000,000 plague-stricken, polygamy-practising, child- marrying, superstitious people of India ; 300,000,000 ignorant, scantiiy-dad African negroes, with cannibal tribes in the central régions . . . scheming, gold-dutching millîonaires of America ; Whitechapel murderers of London, travelling road-side tramps and thieves ; night-walking outcast men and women that infest the dties ; the liars, gamblers, unprindpled tricksters, slum- saloon patrons, wild, dazed, insane j criminals in jails and peni- tentiaries ; intriguing, morally-per jured politidans/ he adds t 4— these— ail these are swept with the black besom-wing of death into the spirit world î They are spirits— discamate spirits now— but are they pure i — are they good i I f so, what has made them sot1 Was it the last death-gaspi Is death a saviori Does dying inject, or transmit with a flash, beneficence and wisdom into a stupid African cannibal i Does death clean off the slate, making philosophera of idiots, and saints of savages i Are tkere no evü spirits just over the border / 4 If not, then spirit-identity is a fallacy— a gigantic delusion/ Then follows the first marked passage : 4 These countless millions above-named, divested of thdr mortal vestures, are now spirits, yet in tendency and sentiment, they are still of the earth, earthy/ O f course we never hear a word from Spiritualists who organise or hold the weekly meetings of this sort of evil spirit-entity ever manifesting at their public séances. When the Great M etro- poh’tan Spirituaîist Association advertises its séances at which there is * Healrng by Sw iftf o o t/ who may hâve been a first-dass hand at scalping in his earth-life, we are not warned that public séances are, according to men like Peebles and Stainton Moses, the very type of occasion for earth-bound spirits to manifest, Nor does the Marylebone Spirituaîist Association Ltd. (I like the 4 Ltd/) put us on our guard against the possibility of the médiums they hâve engaged being fraudulent, and therefore the more likely to attract lying spirits. No ; we are not advised of these possible dangers. A il die spirits who manifest at the 3,000 C9 4 ] 4 WHISTLE, AND IT,L COME ' wecîdy meetings are presumed to be good spirits ; ail ready ta produce phenomena ‘ on tap/ Cm ihese Associations, whether Ltd, or not, guarantee that no earth-bound, lying or tricksy spirits will rush in to be présent at their meetings i Are there no spirit gate-crashers i After ail, it is not only in the U.S.A. that evil spirits abound to trouble séances, We must not overlook Dr, Peebies' allusion to the * Whitechapel murderers of London * ; and as spokesman for this side of the Atlantic we hâve the Rev. William Stainton Moses, M.A, (Oxon.) This reverend gentleman referred in his Spirit Identity (p. a) to the difficulties of investigation, and said, regarding séances î * The gates are set ajar, and a motley company enfers/ He repeats this description of the manifesting entities on page twelve, heading the section in capitals :

* T he G ates being ajar, a M otley C rowd rushes in . * The worid from which disembodied spirits return to us is very much iike our own. The denizens of it are of varying degrees of progression ; and those, unfortunately for us, who are least progressive, least developed, and most material and earthly, hover around the confines, and rush in when the gates are set ajar, ' Our crimùmls we hâve atways with us. 4 The dwellers in our ianes and alleys, for whom we make a decent life impossible ; the victims of our lusts and debaucheries, whom our conditions of life drive, like the poor sheep that they are, to inévitable sin and shame— these scapegoats of advanced civilisation . . . these we hâve too, answering the first call, only too ready to corne back to the only place they care for, * They who hâve lived the life of incarnation without progress : they who hâve hoarded their treasure here, and hâve no home elsewhere ; they who are tied to earth by any of the bonds that chain down the spirit ; they for whom heaven has no meaning, and who would find their highest gratification on the earth they should hâve quitted for ever ; those, in short, whom we by our vicious civilisation, by aË the methods whereby worldly wealth and power preys on and dégradés those who are the ministers of its lusts and material cravings and necessities ; those whom we hâve reduced to the level of mere physical machines, and robbed of the predous birthright of spiritual progress and true life— these find the gates ajar and vex us. . , . W hat does H oly W rit

[ 9 5 l SPIRITUALISM say i ** He that is unjust is unjust still ; and he that is filthy h fiîthy still/*' Carry on the argument, and the conclusion is inévitable. We hâve éléments set loose from this world of ours day by day, endowed too, with perpetuated life and energy, sufficient to nrake ît not only probable but certain that, once m establish communication with the disembodied statet they will retum to vex and harass us, as we know they do/ If this be the actuai State of affaire ; if the statements of these leading exponents of Spiritualism be true— and there would seem to be little reason to doubt that they were honest in writing as they did ; for, after ail, they were downright ardent advocates of the cause of Spiritualism— again I ask î why, why, why, in the face of such statements, made by such men, as to the evil nature of the spirits who are first on the spot to manifest, why is it taken for granted that ail the phepomena at private, and espedaliy at public séances are the work of good spirits i Tttmtratèd, in its issue for January i, 1944, declared that * Once again the Spiritualist movement stands in the limelight, Every Sttnday almost 3,000 Spiritualist groups meet in churches and halls throughout England. Thousands of converts hold séances in their homes/ Are we to believe, after reading what Jackson Davis, Peebles and Stainton Moses hâve written, that ail these thousands of groups and private circles never contact an evil spirit i H such maHcious intelligences do not manifest, why are so tnany warning instructions given by the Lyceum Marnai, Stainton Moses and people like Mr. Harry Boddington î Why are there people liike Dr. Cari Winnick for * driving out obsessions through mediumship * i— those “ obsessions so commun in Spiritism/ as Dr. Peebles puts it in itaücs on the title-page of his book i Those * 3,000 Spiritualist groups/ which Jllustrateâ distinguishes from the private circles, are the very type that are denounced by the more respectable leaders of Spiritualism. Such groups hold their séances under what are termed * bad conditions/ the worst conditions; conditions condemned repeatedly by more honest Spintualists. Apart from my own conviction (which would count for nothing with the believing Spiritualist) but relying solely on the denunciations of such types of meetings as hâve been uttered by their own , I would say, emphatically, that if evil, malicious, ever manifest they must do so at such gathermgs. The * conditions * are ail bad : the professional medium en gage*!, who is, in the words of Conan Doyle, * the curse o f the [963 1 WHISTLE, AND Y LL COME ' movement * ; the promiscuity of the people drawn to the séance ; the ftivolous, the merely curions» the sceptical— and that very class who should keep away î the broken-hearted, the bereaved» the anxious» the unbalanced ; ail o f whom Oliver Lodge and Stainton Moses warned off, as 4 their judgœent is uncritical ' ; the cool» calculated presumed daim to be abîe to secure phenomena immediately the medium goes into action» Sunday after Sunday» or any time on any day that is advertised. Those who hâve studied the literature on the subject and who hâve not been content to get ail their information from such papers as Psychic News know perfectly weii that the most famous médiums—those of English, Continental and Trans-Atlantic repute'—hâve repeatedly failed at séances to get any results at ail. Are we to believe» then, that the professionals like the Baylises, the Murphey-Lydys» the Duncans, the Hamiltons can get results any time they like i The organisera of uch meetings must know the odds are against genuine phenomena occurrmg under such conditions» and thère- fore must be prepared to sanction fraud, lest their patrons go away disappointed— and the Association Ltd* would be faeed with a finandal loss* If they are ready to pass off the fraudulent for the genuine their motives are bad ; and should any spirit reaîly manifest in the course of the session it would in ail probability be an evil one* To back up this judgraent on the matter I quote once more from Spirit Identity (p* 16} : * Too often what happens is this : a number of persons assemble» most of them densely ignorant of any conditions to be observed ; sonie animated by mere curiosity» a few by a dumb desire to see what can be had through the only course open to them as evidence of a future life : ail, in nine cases out of ten» unfit, for one or more of many causes, for the solemn work they hâve undertaken. The îink between the two worlds, the line that the Intelligent Operator must use» is out o f order» over-wrought» in anything but a satisfactory condition* How should it be otherwise i Anyone who can spare five shillings runs to him for proof of immortality 1 The burden is more than he can bear ; and if he be a model of integrity» a very storehouse of psychic power» he becomes distressed and broken down. His nerves are shattered» he is open to the assaults of ail the malidous» tricksy spirits that his vocation brings him in contact wîth» and, as a conséquence» he is in grievous péril— through our ignorance and folly as much as through the ever-present danger of his [97l G SPIRITUALISM vocation— of moral, or mental, or physical détérioration» Then cornes the necessary sequel ; temptation, obsession, fraud, buffoonery, and ail that we so lament as assodated with phéno ménal Spiritualism» * These are the drcumstances under which a large proportion of those who desire to gather evidence respecting the intercourse between the two worlds are forced to get it. I repeat that I am astonished that any evidence shoald be worth comting that is produced under stick conditions ; and I do not wonder that, as a rule, the evidence is faulty, and that the conditions set up and per» petuated by us resuit in much that is discreditable, and even shameful. 4 In so saying, I hâve in mind many a scandai that has brought shame on the cause I advocate.' It is amazing îo me that anyone who has read widely and studiously the literature of Spiritualism could lend his or her name and presence to the fostering of these promiscuous public séances in the Caxton Hall or any orner hall. Seeing the picture of Lord Dowding at the late Caxton Hall meeting, apparently telling the photographer to * Get on with it/ I asked myself : 4 Qu'est-ce qu'il est allé faire dans cette galère i * There you hâve it : at such meetings the medium * is open to the assaults of ail the maiicious, tricksy spirits that his vocation brings him in contact with.' Andrew Jackson Davis, Hudson Tuttie, Stainton Moses, Dr. Peebles— one after another— ail dedaring that there is an enormous doud of evil witnesses, ‘ a motley crowd,' ready to rush in as soon as the gates between this world and the next are set ajar by the forming of a séance-circle. But the puzzle is î why do ail these people content themselves with describing these evil Intelligences as merely malidous, lying spirits, possibly sub-human, ' agencies other than the départe! spirits of our kind ' i Why can they not go further and admit that they are devils in the orthodox theological sense i After ali, Dr. Peebles and Stainton Moses claimed to be Christian dergymen ; ought not the word of Jésus Christ to be good enough for them i What différence does it really make to the cause of Spiritualism to admit the existence of the devil and his angels when they so openly admit the existence of hordes of evil, malidous, lying and obsessional earth-bound spirits who are the l£ke of Satan in thdr influence and character i Accepting, for arguments sake— though I hâte to hâve to put it so—the Spiritualists' description of Jésus as ' the greatest [ 9 8 ] * WHISTLE, AND rL L C O M E * medium that ever lived/ what do we find in reading any of the four accounts of His life— the four Gospels i We find this : that He believed in the existence of the devil and his angels ; He taught that they existed ; He claimed the power to exorcise them, and also the ability to pass on that power to His disciples» His very mission on earth, as St. John tells us, was ' to destroy the Works of the devil— Ivx Xu

[ 9 9 3 SPIRITUALISM Swafferis home drcle, He seems to hâve dethroned 4 White Shadow/ the chief guide of the cirde. He is a pantheistic North American Indian (?)+ Im*t it astounding { Isnh it perplexing to think that people who wotdd call themselves sane can prefer the teaching of quondam scrip-hunting, savage 4 braves/ whom nodoby can identify nor prove to hâve EviR existed, to that of Jésus Christ i Quos dem mit perdere prias dementat The movement appears to be one of the attacks of Antichrist— it is anti-Christ. Let us consider again those portentous words of Stainton Moses : 4 There is an organised plan on the part of the spirits who govem these manifestations « , „ to act on us and on the reHgious thought of the âge/ That is the whole situation. If these spirits were merely the soûls of the dead, why should they bother about the religions thoughts of those on earth i W e hâve been told that whaîever religion a man belongs to in this life will be his religion beyond the grave. But we see how the plan acts. It attempts to change the man*s reHgion in this life if he takes up Spmtualism. Dr. J, M. Peebles wrote at the âge of 92 a brief account of his conversion to beîief in Spiritualism. He described his réluctance to take aay notice of the 4 rappings * then becoming common at Auburn, U .SA . Finaîly he went to consult a female medium. The raps and the vibrations both astonished and horrified him. 4 When I got back to my study I tried to get rid of ail thoughts of 44 spirits/* It was impossible. True enough, I had preached eloquently of the future life, immortal life, and now that the spirits had corne and proved the truth of my preaching I was annoyed and almost angry with them ; because they had turned my religions beliefs upside down * (p. 58). Mijnheer Beversluis : _4 Formerly I believ^ed that Jésus was the second person of the Trînity ’— now he beüeves that no more. 4 Never did Jésus Christ daim to be God ! * says Captain Volpi. And Stainton Moses devoted a whole chapter in his Higher Aspects of Spiritualism which he entitled 4 Loss and G ain/ Here is a man, educated and well read, a dergyman of the Church of Bngtand, who once redted, Sunday after Sunday, the Nicene Creed, and thirteen times a year the Athanasian Creed, before his congrégation ; and through his adoption of Spiritualist practices he gave up belief in the Trinity of God, in the Divinity of Christ, in rite existence of the Holy Ghost, in the Atonement and Redemp- E100] 'W H IS T L E , AND FLL COME* tion through the shedding of Christ's Blood on Calvary. * We hâve iost a God-man» but we hâve gained a mode! m aa, ail but divine / Like Lady Emily Lutyens, who said with regard to the Krishmmurti humbug stunt : * There must be anarchy before there can be création ' {Herald of the Star, March 1937), so Moses dedared : * The work of destruction must necessarily précédé the work of construction/ So ail is plain : the organised plan of the spirits to work on the religions thought of the day was to be by the way of destruc tion— destruction of true Christian faith, and especialîy of Cathode faith ; destroy ail belief In the idea o f Jésus as God-Incarnate, then people will take His authority as being of only a wee bit more value than Mahomet's ? and so the world can believe what it likes and behave as it likes, and nobody need bother himself about anything. If that plan is not, to the truly Christian mind at least, the work of the de vil, one is justified in asking : what is i Some reader may retort : 4 Yes, that may be true of the general trend of the movement, but wheee does the diabolic influence COHE IN WITH REGARD TO SÉANCES < HoW FAR ARE THE PHENO- MENA OF SPIRITUALISH DUE TO DEMONIC OR SATANIC AGENCY i * Much as they may seem to be alike these are two distinct questions, each having its bearing on the subject of this chapter. i. There is the influence exercised to attract people to frequent séances or to * try for themselves/ and be impressed. This may lead to a continuance of attendance or to a répétition of experi- menting at home, a. There is the question of the aetml agency of the devü in producing the phenomena. In other words, we are asked to dîscuss (a) the r e h o t e influence and (b) the i m m é d i a t e influence of Satan in Spiritualism. (a) R e m o t e i n f l u e n c e : According to ail true and historié- Christian teaching there exists outside this material world, in which we live and move and hâve our being, a world of spirits both good and bad. God is the Suprême Spirit who alone exists of Himself, and is infinité in ail perfections, There are the good Spirits, commonly called Angels— though the Angels are only one class of the nine choirs of pure Spirits— who are the créatures and the servants of Almighty God. There are the evil spirits, who are called devils ; these are the enemies of God. C lo i ] SP1KJL rUAJLIàM The Sacred Sadptures are fuU of references to the existence of both good and evil spirits and the New Testament tells us that 4 our wrestling is not against flesh and blood» but against prindpali- ties and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in high places *— therefore St* PauTs couverts at Ephesus were advised to take unto them 4 the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish ail the fiery darts of the most wicked one/ That 4 shield of faith f is the very protection of which Satan would deprive manMnd through Spiritualism. Forgetting, or igporing, the words of Jésus Christ ; 4 Blessed are they that hâve not seen, and hâve beüeved/ Spiritualists actually sneer at faith, and would hâve ail men become as 4 doubting Thomases/ We are asked to stake our beüef in a future life on the fraudulent phenomena of such notorious fake-mediums as the widely celebrated Eva C., Mrs* Duncan, George Valiantine, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Murphey Lydy, Harold Evans, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Baylis, Jean Guzik, Miss Hazel Ridley, Stanislawa P., and so on, and so on ; or eîse to base it on the alleged teachings of unidentifiable Red Xndians and Arabs. Spiritualists seem not to recogmse the différence between divine faith and simple creduüty. 4 As for Silver Birch's teach ings being at variance with the Christian belief, thank God they are f l Our Lord Jésus Christ described Satan as the father of lies. St. John wrote : * He that committeth sin is of the devîl : for the devh sihneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God appeared that He might destroy the Works of the devil/ The work of the devil is the luring away of human beings from the love and service of God ; and this is done by destroying beKef in the divinity of Christ whom He hath sent, and by setting ’at naught the value of the Rédemption by Christ's Atonement. In order to secure that rejection of Jésus Christ as Redeemer and Saviour any and every means of séduction is used by Satan and fais assodate wicked spirits; appeals to pride, lust, envy, jeakmsy, love of money, curiosity, and every human wealmess. Of these the least reprehensibie (in one sense), the least dé terrent, and the one most common to men and women, is CORIOSITY. * Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil/ And the surrender to that appeal ‘ to know * ail brought sin into this world, and with sin, death. [ioa] * WHISTLE, AND T L L C O M E * 11 was the debasement of human Intelligence (or reason), that greatest gift of God to man, that very gift that marks man off from the brute création, which calied for such a penalty. As part of our ratiotial nature we are always wanting to know— ■ even if it is only the winner of the 3.30. Curiosity leads many Eves to read their husbands' letters. Curiosity entices young people to pry into books not intended for adolescents— and the surrender to the temptation of curiosity has much to answer for. Unfortunately we too often want to know the wrong things. The human will is ôrdained to choose jfood. W hen it décidés on the choice of what is evil, that is because the evil présents itseîf, for the moment of choice, as something good— an advantage to well-being, or pocket, or knowledge. Satan being an intellectual being, knows this. With his expérience of what human nature is and of what human minds long for, and knowing that the human will revolts from evil as evil, he can easily work on the chief weakness of any human being in order to lead him or her away from God. Spiritualists claîm to hâve proved that discarnate spirits can communicate their thoughts to human minds ; what, then, is there to prevent evil spirits who hâve never been incarnate and who are of a higher întellectual nature from doing likewîse i What is more likely than that they should exploit the curiosity of the bereaved and others as to what happens to the human soûl after death i When to that curiosity to know what is hidden from us by God there is added the attraction of mystery and the lure of the occult, what more enticing temptation could the devil use i T h e fortune-telling élément apart, there is attached to it no danger of arrest for breach of the civil law ; it is free from the grossness that repels many from sensual sins ; it leads to no infringement of a neighbour’s rights— it ail seems so harmless, so simple, so natural, so above-board, and so very removed from sin. Hence to the Catholic mind it is just the very type of tempta tion the devil would use. The actual results of loss of Christian faith through dabbling in Spiritualism bear ample testimony to the strength of this argument as to the ‘ remote * influence of the devil (p. 15). (6) There is another influence, which is Immédiate or D irect. Here we State the Sound Catholic prindple which is used in the testing of miracles, namely : never to postulate the supernatural until ail known possible explanations hâve been exhausted. [ 103] bFJLKJL i U A i j l b M

When that has been done each individual case must be considered on the fait évidence given. Where that evidence proves conclusively that no explanation by way of fraud or trickery or mal-observation or telepathy or any other natural hypothesis catx account for the phenomena, then we are left with the only conclusion which remains : that the cause is supematurd ; and if the résulte are of an evil nature, then the supernatural agency is of the devil, It might be objected : But why not allow that it may be the work of some discamate human soûls1 It might be , , , but such a manifesting 1 spirit * could only be one from hell* Catholic doctrine concerning Heaven is : that Heaven is a State of ineffable happiness wherein the soûl enjoys the suprême reward of the Vision of God. 1 Now we see in â glass darkîy/ says St, Paul,4 but then face to face/ I put it to any reader who daims to be a true Christian yet hovers on the brink of the pit of Spirituaiism : what soûl entranced by the Vision of God would wish to leave that for the darkened séance-room in order to tap people on the head with a celluloid trumpet or to ring ah the plated bells on a Christmas-tree at once i On the admission of Spiritualiste themselves, as we hâve seen, many of the messages are futile, deceiving or lying ; and, as such, are wickedly cruel when the déception is practised on people recendy bereaved. Again, experimenters with the planchette can testify, by the score, to the obscene, filthy and blasphémons messages received, The iate Mr. Godfred Raupert, once an ardent believer in Spirituaiism, told me how his dabbling with the planchette made bôth himself and his wife downright ill through the foulness. of the messages they received. Ail was fair, 4 uplifting * and in- nocuous to begin with ; but the later résulte were horrifying— and that led him to enter the Catholic Church as the only Christian body that, as far as he knew, condemned Spirituaiism outright. Gilbert K. Chesterton told Fr, O'Connor that he used to experiment with the planchette quite frequently at one time, but that later he gave it up because it gave him headaches followed by * a horrid feeling as if one were tryîng to get over a bad spree, with what he could best describe as a bad smell in the mind ' (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Maisie Ward, p. 45), Are such the résulte or the consoüng words one would expect from spirite who had corne direct from the Presence of G od W ho m infinste purity and truth i [104] * WHISTLE, AND FLL C O M E ' Someone might ask : 4 Might they not be souk from Purgatory i * One would need to hâve a low conception of what Purgatory means to be able to entertain for a moment, seriously, that that oould be the explanation, The soûls in Purgatory are the prisoners of God's love and mercy* They are not free to manifest at the beck and call of the Mrs. Rolfes or Mrs. Duncaas, nor of ail the bereaved and the merely curious. They are expiatmg forgfven sins, and such is their intense love of God that they would be most tmükely ready to induce their friends who are stiil on earth to displease Almighty God by indulging in practices which He has forbidden. ‘ Well, might they not be some of M r. C . S. Lewis's Screwtape's pupils— spirits or deviis from hell i * Now, who in his right mind wants to commune with spirits from hell, spirits who are the enemies of both God and maa i Is it to such beings that the ajourner must turn for syrapathy, instead of to the God of ali consolation i These, we say, are the general principles. The question now anses : How do we propose to deal with the indimdual cases in order to judge the extent of direct dîabolic agency i Here we must digress in order to emphasise once more the truth of true Christian teaching regarding the existence of the devil and his assodate wicked spirits. To support our belief in the existence of the devil we hâve the authority of the Old and New Testaments. In regard to that I may point out that many Spiritualists déclaré that the Bible was written * under spirit guidance/ A former editor of Light (Mr. Wallis) and his wife wrote a book to prove it. Now, the authenticity of the New Testament as an historical document is fully guaranteed. Even Harnack, the leader of the school of Higher Criticism in Germany, felt compelled to admit, in the end, the authenticity and genuineness of the varions books of which it is composed. No historié document has been sub- jected to so prolonged, nor to such adverse criticism as has the New Testament. No other book has been so well vindicated. Catholics, therefore, are on sound, reasonable ground when they accept the facts of Christ's Birth, Death and Résurrection. From the fact of the Résurrection of Christ they deduce His Divinity : He is Lord of Life, God Incarnate. Accepting Jésus Christ as God Incarnate they believe in the [ 105] SPIRITUALISM absolute perfection of His character and in the absolute truth of H is statements* When Chrbt speaks it is God Who speaks, Jésus is not only the Way and the Life— He is also the Truth* Hence, when Jésus talks of the existence of the devil (* Be gone, Satan : for it is written : The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve.* ‘ Heal the sick ; cast out devils *) we believe that Satan and the devils exist. When He uttered those words to St, Peter : 4 Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to hâve you that he may sift you as wheat * * */ we see in that warning the policy of attempting to brîng about disunity amongst the Apostles and thus weaken their attack on the kingdom of darkness, just as Hitler to-day seeks to sow seeds of discord amongst the United Nations in order to weaken their attack on Germany. When Jésus professes to exorcise possessing devils (* Go out of him, thou unclean spirit *), when He gives to His Apostles the power to cast out devils, a power distinct from that of healing the sick (* Heal the sick } cast out devils *), then we believe unfeignedly in the existence of Satan and his wicked angels, and in their power to obsess and possess human beings, That evil spirits, presumed to be discarnate spirits, do actually obsess or possess human beings is, as we hâve seen, admitted by the highest authorities in Spiritualism. Materialistic psychologists may refer to ail the examples of what may easily be cases of demonic possession— cases such as those o f 4 Felida X ,*4 Sally Beauchamp,* and Léonies I and II— as cases of ' Split personality/ * Doppel Ich/ * Dédoublement de personalité * j or speak of them more mystifyingly as examples of * Schizophrenia * ; but do these imposing terms explain the cases i A psychologist who déniés the existence of the human soûl as a spiritual entity is forced to invent imposing words to save his face* * Dédoublement de personalité/ 4 Doppel Ich *— these terms are mere words t each human Seing is o n l y one person. In speaking of Jésus Christ as the God-ÏÆan Catholic theology understands and teaches that ‘ there are two natures in Jésus Christ, but only one person.* Hence, if there be another * person * occupying the body of the possessed that 4 person * is a devil* I am not denying for a moment that there is a psychological esplanattoa of die double characteristics observed in abnormal mental cases* After ail we must stick to the principle of not pûîmdating the supernatural until ail possible natural explanatîons [ 106 ] * WHJSTLE, AND I 'L L C O M E r hâve been exhausted; and a very natural explanation of som mental abnormalities may be found in the subconscients exercising the ascendancy over the conscious. Those who are addicted to a form of auto-hypnosis through attempts to develop medittmship are, no doubt, in reality, developing a mental condition wherein the subconsdous is being allowed too large a portion of activity ; with the resuit that the controllable conscious mental îife drops into the background, to be superseded by the subliminal (or subconsdous)— and that condition is abnormal, ttnhealthy and dangerous, dangerous to mental balance» That danger is increased where the mental background stages a belief in the action o f departed spirits ; and just as repeated subjection to hypnotic suggestion can bring about an undesirable State of mind, so repeated experiments in auto-hypnosis can lead to delusions regarding obsession and possession by the spirits of the dead. Such obsessionaî cases are common amongst Spiritualists. Hence the précautions that must be taken, in the earlier stages of * development of mediumship * at least, against allowing oneself to pass into a State of trance. The shivering and shaking, the moaning and even frothing at the mouth that in many cases précédé * going under control * are of their nature— consfdered merely as nervous disturbances— something to cause anxiety. If the individuals who allow themselves to get to such a stage are of a neurotic disposition, there is danger to their mental balance at least. What is more, because they invoke the control of spirits their State may readily become one of not mere delusion, but of obsession : 1 Whistle, and TU corne/ We may be asked : How do Cathoücs attempt to diagnose satanic possession in such cases as distinguished from possession by discarnate human soûls/ The answer is : that ail the phenomena of the alleged possession are taken into account, examined, considered and diagnosed* Just as in medical diagnosis varions éléments combine to enable the doctor to form his opinion as to the patient*s malady— tempéra ture, puise, respiration, location of pain, and so on— so in spiritual diagnosis various indications, some by themselves, others when conjoined with a multiplicity of factors, enable those competent to judge to décidé whether the case is one of mere mental ab- normahty or real possession. Catholic theology has laid down the prindples for determining diaboiic possession, and some of those prindples or criteria are such as are applicable to the judging [ 107 ] SPIRITUALISM of the nature of the agency at work in the production of Spirituai- istic phenomena, Amongst those criteria some are merely probable indications of possession ; others are looked upon as certain—-just as in medicine some symptoms of disease are only probable indications of a spécifie malady, whilst others are certain and defmite. And, a^ain as in medicine, a combination of probable symptoms of a disease may justify a doctor in making a definite diagnosis ; so, too, in spiritual diagnosis a combination of several probable signs of possession may justify a decided opinion on the point* [En parenthèse I might suggest to the serious reader a compara tive study of Chapter IX in Human Personalîty, by F, W. Myers, and the exceptionaliy good book Les Névroses et la Possession diabolique, by Dr. Charles Hélot. There is a profound contrast between the views of one who does not want to admit the existence of the devil, and of one who exhausted ail possible natural explanations only to find that a superaatural, satanic influence had to be admitted in the end.] In the application of these criteria to psychical phenomena I quite réalisé that, devilish in character as they may be, some of the indications may be due to the downright malevolent thoughts commumcated through telepathy from the sitter or sitters to the mind of the medium. For example, take the obscene and dread- fuily blasphemous brochure, Histoire de VEucharistie, published by M. le Chevalier Le Clément de St. Marcq. (St. Marcq sent me twenty-five copies of it ; it was issued in French, Flemish and Spanish.) St. Marcq was the President of the Fédération Spirite Belge (representing the 37 Spiritualist Sodeties). Beginning in October 1904 he gave a course of lectures on * L ’Interprétation des Livres Sacrés * to Spiritualist study-drdes at Antwerp, The course covered two years* study, and was repeated in its entirety to five sériés of students, and was not interrupted till 1909, when a new course of theology ($) was begun. This course, an exegetical one, comprised the most blasphemous and obscene teaching regarding the Holy Eucharist. He con- densed it in his brochure, The book was so horrible that ail but two of the sodeties in the Fédération— those of Bruges and Antwerp— forced him to resign his leadership, and he was charged by the offidal organ of the Fédération (Le Courrier Spirite Belge) w itb * immoralité flagrante * for pubüshing it, Although St. Marcq claîmed for his book that it was written tmâer spmt-gmdamce it may bave been due to nothing else but [io8] * WHÏSTLE, AND I'LL COME * thought-transference from the vile mind of St. Marcq to the medium* But I do not think that a Catholic could be jusdy blamed for dedding that it was the work of the devil, espedally since the prindples he enuntiated are very espedally those of the 4 Black Mass/ which is, in direct intention,, the worship of Satan himself. When to this is added the fact that the book contained letters of approbation from a number of Satanists (including two ex-abbés) the probability of its being the work of the devil is increased* I quote this case as an illustration of how far one may be prepared to go in assessing a merely natural explanation, one due, for example, to telepathy from an evil mind ; but when a more complété knowledge of the symptomatic drcumstances are studied in its connection something really diabolic is suggested* Now, in regard to the mental (or psychic) phenomena it is not onîy the ckaracter of the alleged spirit-messages that needs to be considered, there are other signs that hâve to be valtted. Some of them may be found in certain maladies— hysteria, lunacy, etc* — but the indications of their being diabolic in engin dépend on their accumulation. These probable signs are too numerous to relate* Hence we shall confine our attention to the more certain signs* Amongst those laid down as providing certain evidence of diabolic agency are the following : i. Si quis prius îgnarus de repente linguis loquatur peregrinis — that is : speaking in a language of which the medium was previously ignorant. We must note here : (a) it is not a matter of replying in one's own language to questions put in a foreign tongue— thought is not dépendent on any language ; the deaf and dumb can think before ever they learn anything of manual signs— it is a matter of u s i n g a language never previously leamt. That is the great marvel in the miracle Christ wrought when he heaîed the man who was born deaf and dumb, 4 and immdiately he spoke right, blessing God ' ; (b) nor is it a matter of uttering a few phrases that could hâve been leamt by heart, There is the very amusing case, * T h e Return of Arditi/ as described by Mr. Harry Price in his Leaves from a Psychisfs Case-Book, where the lateJHL Dennis Bradley's most trusted medium was found to hâve memorised a few sentences from Italian phrase-books. This was not discovered tiîl a good time afterwards (pp* 305, ss.) ; [ 109] SPIRITUAL ISM (c) nor is it a case of the medium muttering umnteîîigibîe sounds which the sitters, in their ignorance of the language those sounds are supposed to represent» accept on the medium/s statement to be ancient Chinese, Arabie or early Hebrew. As an example we hâve the incident recorded in Psychic News (Jan. 6, 1934, p, 6) ; * Hebrew as Evidence ; The third story is that of a women (sic) who went to Red Cloud's voice drcle. A spirit voice claimed to be her husband. *u Can you prove it i ** she asked. * Immedîately, he spoke in Hebrew to her. * This was evidential, as» on earth» he was a teacher of Hebrew ih Scotland.' It is very doubtful as to whether the wîdow knew Hebrew from Maltese. Nor are we told whether there was anyone présent who could guarantee the sounds uttered to be genuine Hebrew» or to tell us whether it was Yiddish» Aramaic or some other Hebrew dialect. And one's doubts as to the genuineness of the whole proceedings are increased by the statement that» ' in connection with the mediumship of Estelle Roberts ' a ‘ man had a long conversation with Red Cloud, her guide» in Arabie/ * Curioser and curioser,* said Alice. It just happens that I kept the copy of The Two Worlds which its editor very kindly sent me» with paragraphs marked in which my name figured ; because in that issue of February 6» 1931» there is a full-page article on the mediumship of Estelle Roberts. The article is * An Interview with Mrs. Roberts/ It describes how her mediumship developed. For a week nothmg happened. In disgust she put away the table through which she had hoped to get communications» saying : ' That's that î They hâve given me nothing to prove what they said was true. I thought it was ail ** bunkum.” * As I turned» my daughter screamed and ran out of the room. Then I felt a bump against m y head» and» glancing around» I was astounded to see the table floating in the air across the room. I was not a bit frightened» and when it settled down again I put my hands on it, Then the message came î ** I» Red Cloud» corne help the world. I work with you. No more touch table. You hâve knowledge.” (Red Cloud subsequently proved to be my guide.) To say I was astonished is to put it mildly/ L too» am astonished, to put it mildlv. I know from expérience that Arabie is one of the most difficûlt ianguages in the world. H ow cornes it» then» that a Red Indian from North America can— [ no] * W H 1STLE, AND FLL COME' according to Psychic News— carry on * a long conversation in Arabie/ when hîs English is so * pidgin * ï < . . And we hâve the Hebrew from the same source. Red Cloud also speaks in French at the Douai circle, W ell, that is not the kind of evidence we require to fulfil the condition 4 si quis prius ignarus de repente linguis loquatur peregrinis/ Such instances as reported by the Spiritualist press are too reminiscent o f4 The Murder in the rue Morgue/ Lovers of Poe will recall how the sounds made by the chatterings of a monkey were alleged, by the various witnesses in the case,, to be languages quite dissimilar, but somehow representing to the minds of the witnesses a tongue foreign to their knowledge. If, as in the case of the Zulu girl Germana— as given us by the Right Rev. Mgr. Delalle, of Natal— a case is substantiated of actual intelligent use of a language previously unknown to the subject, then the obvious explanation is that the phenomenon is supematural (not merely supernormal) j and when the rest of the details are filled in, with their satanic character, only one conclusion remains— vis. diabolic agency. a. Si légat ignarus, scribat . . . de rebus sublimionibus, et aliunde ignotis, erutide respondeat— that is ; the exhibition of a knowledge of, and an ability to argue about, subjects beyond the inteUectual capacity of the medium. A perfect example of these two criteria is provided in the narrative above referred to regarding the case of possession affecting two Zuîu girls, Germana and Monica. It corresponded in nearly every detail with the case of Maria Celeste (as reported in Lace e Ombra) and that of * Louise * given by Dr. Charles Hélot in his Névroses et Possession diabolique. I pubüshed a com parative study of these three cases— one given by a Catholic bishop in Natal ; one by an Italian student of the occult ; and the third by a French mental specialist— in a medical monthly, where it received complété approbation* Mental phenomena, whether diagnosed by materialist psychologists as examples of split personaüty, Doppel Ich, or Dédouble ment de Personnalité, are not the only ones which corne under considération in the question of diagnosing diabolic possession. Physical phenomena are dealt with also. The first criterion with regard to these is : * Vires supra aetatis seu conditionis naturam ostendere '— that is. the exhibition of praeturnatural strength. [ n i ] SPIRITUALISM As Dr* Charles Hélot points ont, it is not a question of mere increase of strength (exaltation des forces) like that met with in convulsions or nervous attacks ; but the exhibition of strength or Of résistance must really be beyond human capability, ' Pour que ce signe puisse apporter une certitude, il faut que les tours de force ou de résistance dépassent véritablement les forces de la nature humaine/ In the same class may be mcluded such phenomena as are opposed to the laws of physics, chemistry and physiology : im- munity from buming either by firé or Chemicals ; and so on— ail trickery apart, of course. There is another criterion for application to mental phenomena which, taken strictly in its application, is also looked upon as a certain sign of diaboHc influence : 4 Si occulta et absentia, quae nataraliter ab homine sciri non possunt captum tamen daemonis non excedunt, nec sanctitati eiusmodi hominis tribui possunt mani fester *; butwith our présent knowledge of the extent of the power of telepathy the use of thi? criterion would nçed to be very strict ; the words * quae nataraliter ab homine sciri non possunt ' would need stringent application. However, the criteria already given are suffident to cover ail classes of Spiritualistic phenomena. Those criteria are sound ; and I think that ail unprejudiced readers will admit that they are. To use such terms as ' telekinesis * to cover such physical manifestations as lévitations, tying knots in handkerchiefs, ringing bells and throwing men's jackets in the faces of the sitters at a séance explains nothing. To speak of * telekinetic phenomena ' is merely a descriptive phrase ; it is not an expîanation of the source from which the power proceeds. So, too, to speak o f 4 automatic writing ' is not an expîanation as to the source whence the written words corne, Nox does the term * clairvoyance* mean anything definite. Clairvoyance leaves itself open to fraud more than any other Spiritualist phenomenon known— if, as Mr. Harry Price admits, the trance condition is impossible of vérification, what test hâve we for proving the genuineness of any professional dairvoyant i As a matter of fact an ex-medium told me she threw Spiritualism overboard because she discovered how easy it was for a medium, when only partially * under control,’ to get on a platform and deliver an address that was from her own conscious rnind, but which the audience would take to be a spirit message. Hence I would condude— both in the sense of finisbîng tbis [ u s] 4 WHISTLE, AND TLL COME' chapter, and in the sense of summing up in judgment— that any gemme, supernormal phenomena that hâve an evil influence faehind them, either in the source of power which they manifest or m their effect on Christian belief are o f the devil» For the Christian, at least, the mental speciaîist of the Freudian or Dr, Alexander Cannon type is suspect ; the physicist of the raaterialist school is suspect ; the Spiritualist is wholîy suspect. Give the devil his due— even if it be only that of the admission of his existence, Jésus Christ taught the truth of his existence— that should be good enough for us.

[ 113] H VI

THE CATHOLÏC POINT OF VIEW

' So Spiritualisai is evü i * Most certainly, * It îs even of the devil i * Well, if the statement made by the Rev* Stainton Moses be true, namely, that * îhere is an organised plan on the part of the spirits who govera these manifestations to act on us and on the religions thought of the âge,* I cannot see how one can escape the condusion that the devil is behind it ail* Hâve we not seen already how even cîergymen of the Church of England and ministers of the various Nonconformist sects hâve openly acknowledged that SpirituaHsm led them to abandon their belief in the Divinity of Jésus Christ, to reject the Bible and to deny the value of Christ's Atonement and Rédemption by His death on Calvary i Must not that in itself indicate the dxabolic influence behind the Spirituahst movement S* And the high priest saîd to Him i 1 adjure thee by the living God} that thou tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of God, Jésus saith to him ; Thou hast said it, So wrote Saint Matthew in his account of Christis trial before Annas and Caiaphas, Again the high priest asked him, and said : Art thou the Christ the Son of the blessed God i And Jésus said to Him : I AM, Just weigh those words : * 1 adjure thee by the living God — that is, * on your m th —tell us if thou be the Christ the Son of the blessed God* Now if the challenge meant merely that Jésus claimed to be a son of our Father in heaven as d l Jews claimed to be, why should there be need to put Him on oath before He answered the ques tion^ [114] T H E CATHOLIC P O IN T O F VIEW—I If the question meant merely * Dost tfaou daim to be, tike as, a chfld of our heavenîy Father f * why the sequel : 1 the high priest rmt Ms garments, sayîng : Me hath blasphemed, what further rmd hâve we o f witnesses f Behold nom you hâve heard the blasphemy : What think you i But they answering said : Me is guilty o f death ' { The daim to be a mere créature, a created son of God, was no blasphemy to any Jew ; it d id not entail the penalty of death. So Christ hust hâve meant something more than mere created sonship or adopted sonship. He must hâve meant what He said when He declared 4 Before Abraham was made, I AM.' It was because He claimed to be divine that He was sentenced to death for blasphemy. To support that daim was the whoie purpose of the Gospel of St. John. You can't get away from it. The very first words of the first chapter of that Gospel emphasise the fact : * In the begirming was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was G od.' And almost the last words of that gospel are : * These are written that you may believe thaï Jésus is the C hrist the Son of G od.' In the light of these statements of the Gospels I challenge any Spiritualist who stiil daims to be a Christian to read the first Episde of St. John. It would almost seem as if St. John had had a prophétie view of modem Spiritualism when he wrote, He was addressing people who had believed in spiritualistic practices. He asserts the existence of the devil. He refers hîs converts to their former belief in the messages from spirits ; and he déclarés regarding those spirits— who were like those of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles— that * Every spirit that dissolveth Jésus is not of G od, and this is Antichrist When he says 1 try the spirits,' he does not mean, as some Spiritualists maintain, that we should f hold séances ' ; he means 4 test their messages ; analyse their teaching ' (cf, Lycernn Marnai), and if you fmd that such messages ' dissolve ' Jésus Christ by denying either His humanity or His divinity then they are not of G od, but of Antichrist. 4 Yes j but . , Yes ; but what i 4 Well, even members of the Society for Psychical Research and other enquirers into the phenomena of Spiritualism never mention the devil . . . people like Professors Barrett and Hyslop and Sidgwick and Richet and Bolzano ; and men like Schrenck- Notzing and Bradley and Mr. Harry Price.' [ii5 3 SPIRITUALISM

That's the trouble. A il these people you hâve named profess to carry out their tests and experiments on scientific lines ; and they are not truly scientific as long as they ignore a possible explanation of the phenomena that has held the field since Christi- anity began, Their conclusions dépend entirely on two very important and capital considérations : first, on their personal views as to the nature of the human soûl— their views may be Christian or Theosophical or Freudian or entirely Materialistic ; and secondly, on their religions convictions— do they admit the existence of a spirit-world in the historié and traditional Christian sense or not i That is, do they beüeve in the existence of an order of spiritual beings, some good, some evil, who are not discarnate human soûls, but are, as Catholic theology defines them, purely spiritual créatures, either good or bad— that is, either good Angels or devils i B y * pure f spirits is meant : intellectual beings whose nature is complété without any dependence on matter, and who hâve complété personality. If these learned gentlemen deny the spirituality of the human soûl, or if they refuse to accept the possibility of the existence of non-human spiritual beings, then logically they will not admit the existence of the devil and his associate angels. But as long as they ignore or refuse to consider those lesser factors their explanations are not complété, they are not scientific— they hâve not exhausted all possible explanations, 4 WdÜL, what is the Catholic explanation of Spiritualist pheno mena ç1 ' To begin with, let me tell you that the Catholic Church is more truly scientific in her judgment than are the scientists of to-day. She ioes attempt to explore all possible explanations, She lays down the principie that we are 4 not to postulate the supematural untü aU possible natural explanations hâve been exhausted/ Hence the establishment of the Bureau des Contestations at Lourdes -—an office to which any doctor of any faith, or of none, has a right of entry ; and where the medical history of any patient cured at Lourdes can be examined fully, and where any doctor is free to examine the patient for himself, at the time of the cure and at the next visit twelve months afterwards, No * cure * is admitted b y the Bureau unless the patient présents a full medical certificate issued by the doctor who has had charge of the patient at home, * If the * Healing by Swiftfoot * or 4 Black Hawk * or by the * Golden Triangle Healing and Teaching Centre * adopted one- [ u 6 J THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW—I » half of the stringent rules of the Lourdes Bureau then we m ight think there was more than mere healing by auto-suggestion in the results they obtained. Even admitting, for argum ents sake, the reality and permanence of such Spiritualistic 4 heaüngs * they afford no evidence whatsoever that any discarnate human soûl is the healing agent. And coming to the considération of the physical phenomena of Spiritualism we ask» from the practical point of view : how can such phenomena as lévitation, apports, the movement of trumpets, the tying of knots in handkerchiefs, and so on, prove that the human soûl survives after the death of the body ï Even if such phenomena were not due to trickery the most they can prove is the existence of an unknown force— either physical or spiritual— that appears to be beyond the discoveries of physical science. They provide no element for establishing the identity of any alleged manifesting4 spirit/ After reading and studying Spiritualistic publications, from various countries, for over thirty years, I do not recaîl the daim ever having been made that because a table was raised in the dark, almost to the ceiling, that it was a proof that a muscular Unde Joe or a hefty Aunt Maggie, or any other identifiable person was présent in spirit form. For example, let me quote from a letter to Psychîc News. The correspondent wrote : 4 For purposes of instruction, four of us used to sit at the ouija board one night every week. Six weeks ago we were asked to sit in the dark in future. . . . At the second sitting we were treated to peculiar flashes of light. . . . ‘ The same evening, spirit friends moved the trumpet süghtly without contact while we held hands. . . > * The fifth sitting was absolutely devoid of results ; but quite undaunted, we obtained another trumpet, and held our sixth sitting. 4 Results were beyond our wildest dreams. The trumpet performed a peculiar kind of tap dance on the table. When I lifted the trumpet off the table to make room for the ouija board, a bluish-white light jumped between me and the trumpet, the end of which was about three inches away from me at the tîme * (Psychic News, Jan. 6, 1934). On analysis, what does this correspondent^ letter prove î1 Apart from the suspicion aroused by : 1. the instructions received to sit in the dark in future, [ 117] , SPIRITUAL ISM 3. the acquisition of a new tmmpet} to use instead of the * home- made * one in use previously, 3. the mûrement to the kitchenette for the sittings (where there was probably an electric cooker or an electric meter), what evidence do the phenomena (i) of the trumpet doing a peculiat tap dance on the table, or the biuish-white light (so electrical in character) provide that an identified or identifiable discaraate soûl was the agent for the pueriîities that took place i Surely the answer is : * None.' Moreover, the daim was not made in the letter that any identi fiable spirit was the agent. We are simply told that * spirit frîends moved the trumpet slightly/ That is the sole reference to any agency. When bottles of scent or a bunch of fiowers (apports) are introduced into a closed room— like the faked apports of Madame Blavatsky— how does that prove they were brought by a dead relation or friend i One of Conan Doyle's photographed fairies might hâve brought them. And when the spirits of the dead bring présents of ear-rings * from the spirit world ' that were made in Birmingham, we are justified in wondering if Spiritualist * apports * are less fraudulent than those of Mme Blavatsky. (Cf, Hatcher and Little v, Crown ; Cardiff, Nov. 12 , 1942.) The retort might be made : * But what of matérialisations i There you hâve proof of identity.’ Well, what about matérialisations s* Personally I think they, with public clairvoyance, constitute the biggest fraud in the whole range of Spiritualist phenomena. Perbaps the most famous matérialisations were those obtained through the mediumship of Eva C.,under the auspices and arrange ments of the Freiherr Dr. Schrenck-Notging and Mme Bisson. I hâve read Schrenck-Notring's book and studied the photos it contained. I hâve read critiques of the book in English, French, German and Italian psychic magazines ; and I am convinced it was ail fraud— better done than the efforts of Mrs. Helen Duncan, who has been twice convicted in the court for fraudulent mediumship. There is no getting away from the fact that Eva C. made use of fuH front-page blocks from a French illustrated newspaper (Le M ir â t) for her 4 spirit faces.' The flatness of the faces ; the creases in some of them ; and the appearance of some of the actual lettermg of the narne of the newspaper from which the blocks were taken proved the fraud. E«8] THE CATHOLIC P O IN T OF VIEW-I The President Wilson * matérialisation ' could deceive no one. It shows the touched-up newspaper photo just like a page front a newspaper merely lying m the medium*s chest, with one edge of it extending beyond Eva's body. It is taketi from Le Miroir of Nov. 17,191a. Similar one-surfaced faces were materialised at Ada Besinnet's séance in the presence of Sir Arthur and Lady Doyle. Despite the enthusiasm of these two protagonists of Spiritualism for the performance given on that occasion, I would rank it as one o f the most worthîess séances ever given* The sîtting was held in absolute darkness, and there was no control of the medium nor of her assistant at the victrola. If a person stands in the centre of a drcle of eîeven people, ail, surely, can see him at the same rime ; but if the individual in the centre of the circle is showing a photo only three or four of the group can see the full surface of the photo at the same time. Of the rest of the group one or two at either side will observe only the edge of the picture j the others will see nothing of it because it will be hidden from their view by the interposing body of the person in the centre who holds it. And that is what happened at Miss A da Besinnefs séance. Here is what Mr. W. W. Roche says of it— he was présent on the occasion : * AU the appearances were visible fully to only three or at most four sitters at a time. . . . But the matérialisations appeared several times at different arcs of the circle, so that ail had a view. * Now came a vision for Lee Keedick and the sitters on either side of him. He gave a little gasp, but said nothing. The same vision showed to the other sitters. ‘ Lady Doyle cried t ** Why, it is Katie King." The vision was an exact reproduction, each sitter testified, of the photo of K atie King taken by Sir William Crooks years ago and now being repro- duced by Sir Arthur in his American lectures. * Lady Doyle said : ** It is the same sweet face, the same dress, the same draping— it is Katie King. . . J* * “ It is a marvelous thing," said Sir Arthur, and Lady Doyle added t u Is it not wonderful how they try to aid us i Sir Arthur can now tell of having himself seen Katie King, whose spirit picture he has been showing, ..." * There were several other vivid matérialisations, visible from two to five seconds ; one of a boy, one of a man, one of an elderly woman and several of younger women. Some of them were [ 119] SPIRITUALISM recognised ; others were not' (Toledo Nem-'Bee, M ay 33, 1922). Just fancy travelling 60,000,000 miles to appear from two to five seconds, and then not to be recognised î 4 Even if ghosts hâve soûls, they certainly hâve no brains/ Possibly some people are harder to convince than others, I, personally, find it difficult to see how Sir Arthur found it 4 marvelous/ (The American spelling has been retained from Mr. Rochers report— hence, too, 4 Sir William Crooks/) The reader must bear in mind that the séance was held * in perfect darkness/ Now if a human form— not the photo of a human figure— were really materialised it ought to hâve more than one dimension, and so should be visible to ail présent at the same time, and not to only three or four sitters at a time. f * Ordinarily/ Mr. Roche tells us, 4 the matérialisations are illuminated from one side only/ Is not that the very efïect one would expect from throwing a light, either from a small torch or from a phosphorous lamp, on to a photo i Mrs. Helen Dumcan's matérialisations had fairly rounded features ; but they were Father Christmas masks and * Poll- façes/ Too often, as in the case of Mrs. Thompson and Mr, Harold Evans, the médiums themselves masquerade as the manifesting spirits. In this connection it is amusing and interesting to read in It Veltro (p. 1212, N o. 14, 1909) that during a séance in Dresden a spirit-form was fired at— and the medium was wounded 1 * A Dresda, in una seduta spiritica, sarebbe stata colpita, con arma da fuoco, la forma d'un fantasma, vero o falso che fosse ; e il medio sarebbe stato costretto a porsi a letto ferito/ < K Mr. Harry Price had added to his already numerous précau tions against fraud the warning that, when camera-shots were taken an automatic pistol would go off, he might hâve been able to add a few more names to those enumerated in his chapter * Médiums who will not sit with me/ Stainton Moses had Httle time for such phenomena, where a medium * produces one's grandmother for five shillings,' as he put it. It is to be doubted if he would believe any stronger if the matérialisations were produced at Mrs. Duncan's charge of 12s* Sd* plus unpaid income-tax. He wrote : 4 1 believe the whoîe method of conducting matérialisation séances to be erroneous, calculated to introduce éléments of uncertainty, and to produçç the results which we are compelled again and again. tQ THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— I déploré/ He adds, a little further on, that what he tenus the fact of matérialisation being 4 presented as it oniy too freqtiently is, amid conditions of darkness and secrecy that seem devised for the very parpose of mystification, can convince no one who is worth convincing' (Higher Aspects, pp. 16-17)* In his book Spirit Medium Exposed, M r. Samri Frikeîl wrote : 4 Ail the materializing séances are fakes and swindles. No less aninvestigator than the celebrated Doctor E. J. Dingwall of the British Society for Psychical Research admitted almost as much to me. During his visit to this country in 1923 he said that 99 per cent, of the physical phenomena he had witnessed had been fraudulent/ Professor Hyslop, the pioneer of psychical research in America, had even less time for physical phenomena. He presented a sane view when he wrote regarding them : 4 I shall give very brief attention to these, as I do not believe in a single one of themf (Enigmas of Psychical Research, p. 337). W hen men of the standing of Stainton M oses and Hyslop, who genutnely and firmly beüeved in the actuality of spirit-communication, speak out so strongly in denundation of physical phenomena CathoHcs may, surely, be reasonably excused if they also refuse to believe in their gentnneness. As for the psychical, or mental, phenomena, we hâve seen enough in Chapter IV— Per ardua ab astris— to convince us of the worthlessness of clairvoyance and clairaudience in providing any proof whatsoever that the messages corne from any discamate human being. In addition to this we CathoHcs are entitled to ask, using the expression of the Rev. W. Stainton Moses, why should there be connected with séances so many * conditions of darkness and secrecy that seem to be devised for the very purpose of mystification ' i Mystification is the right Word. The actual précautions taken at séances are just of the very type that lend themselves to aid mystification and shield fraud. The perfect darkness or obscurity leaves lots of room for fraud, too much room. The Ada Besinnet séance that Conan Doyle described as 4 marvelous/ and at which Lady Doyle dedared with reference to the tambourine effects in perfect darkness * ; 4 î hâve never before heard such tambourine playing/ is a perfect example of how people may be deceived. Anyone who has even a slight knowledge of stage * Black Magic ' knows how convemently [i3i] SPIRITUALISM easy it îs to create illusions of a most striking kind on a darkened stage* Stainton Moses and D* D. Home condemned entirely the darkened room. Both of those two médiums produced their phenomena in full light. During six years Stainton Moses experienced manifestations ' at aU times, and in ail sorts of places, in the house and out of it, with no formai séance j at meals, in church, in empty rooms, here, there, and everywhere * (Spirit Identity, p, 95)* If they could do it, why can't ail médiums do the sanie i The editor of The Two Wortds (Feb* 6, 1931) criticised * the Vestments, the Postures, the swinging of the Censer, and various other artistic but useless forms of genuflection at a Roman Catholic service/ I did not know that 4 Vestments * or 4 the swinging of the Censer * were 4 forms of genuflection * ; perhaps M r. Oaten knows better* Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who ought to hâve known better, sneered at Catholic liturgical rites* But I wonder what would these good Spiritualists hâve to say if Catholic priests offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass in the dark, to the accompani- ment of * flitting lightst 4 some high in the air, some below the level of the table * (altar), ' some mere sparks of light ; others gaseous appearances as large as half a dollar * i (Toledo News- Bee, May 22,1922)* Yet that is the kind of thing Conan Doyle considered marvellous and to be approached in a religious spirit* The late, much missed G* K* Chesterton took Sir Arthur to task fairly severely on this point* This is what he wrote î 4 He has some very innocent remarks about what he considers grotesque in the sacra mentel System ; innocent, because apparently unconscious of what everybody else in the world considers grotesque in the spiritualistic System. If any Christian service were so conducted as to resemble a really successful séance, the world might welf be excused for faliing back on the Word 44 grotesque.” , * * But when Sir Arthur deliberately gibes at our ceremonies, we may be at least allowed to smile at his* Suppose any Catholic rite before the altar consisted of binding a human being hand and foot with ropes ; should we ever hear the last of the horrible survival of human sacrifice i Suppose we declared that the priest went into a trance and that clouds of thick white stuff hke cotton-wool came out of his mouth, as a manifestation of celestial grâce ; might not some of our critics be heard to murmur the Word 44 grotesque ” i If we conducted a quiet îittle evening service [ 122] t h e c a t h o l ic p o in t o f v ie w —i in which a big brass trumpet careered about in the air and patted people on the head, caressed a lady with intimate gestures of affection, and generally exhibited itself as about as attractive an object as a phiïandering trombone or an amourous big dram, wonld not our critics hâve something to say about the unwholesome hysteria and senseless excitement of Popery i îf the Spiritualist goes out of his way to challenge us to a duel in the matter o f digmty, I do not really think it can be reasonably said that he is on stronger ground than w e f {The Thing, pp, 180-181). If we are to consider the grotesque, what are we to think of such advertisements as these : 1 Psychic Call Bell, everything necessary, including prisms, 9/6.* * Receptograph Communicator. Défiés the subconsdous mind. 4/6/ [It ought to be worth £20 4s. 6d. if it can defy the subconsdous mind.] * Trutnpets are the best !... Made of specially treated celluloïd (the most tangible substance to spirit forces). Function, with minimum o f power. . . . Highly absorbent psychically. Phenomena possible immediately* . . . Why exhaust patience and power on old-fashioned aluminium trumpets i . . . 5/6 ; luminous 7/6/ Does one find anything so grotesque, as an aid to religion, in Catholic publications { What would Spiritualists say if we had advertisements such as : * Sanctus bells complété with prisms * i or, following the example of a North London Spiritualist Sodety : * Eat more bananas as an aid to prayer ' i We hâve music in our churches, granted ; but the music is in harmony and meaning with the act of worship it accompanies— and so we are entitled to ask how the playing o f4 Where the Four- leaved Clover growsf or 4 The Big Bad Wolf ' can be an aid to the worship of Àlmighty God. Surely the playing of * The Big Bad Wolf * following on Lady Caillard’s prayer is somewhat worse than grotesque ; so, too, the prayers of the Baylises, the Hamiltons, George Valiantine and Mrs. Murphey-Lydy. Why the hymns foliowed by songs i Why the Lofd’s Prayer fotlowed by II Baciot or, as in Mrs. Helen Duncan's séances, by 4 You are my Simshine * { 4 Can the Lord's Prayer be called a conjuration i * asked Mr. Loseby, the defending Counsel in the Duncan case. AU ktiow the answer to that ; but the use of the Lord's Prayer as a sort of cover for fraudulent mediumship passes beyond the grotesque to [ 123] SPIRITUALISM what the late Dennis Bradley described as 4 nauseous blasphemy/ G. K. Chesterton told Father O'Connor that the use of the planchette left hhn with what he 4 could best describe as a bad smeîl in the mind/ To read of the misuse of prayers and hymns at fraudulent séances has a like effect. Is it not grotesque to hâve music and singing and banging and shouts of 4 Bravo l * almost constantly during a séance i As Professor Joad says (with hîs tongue in his cheek, no doubt) t 4 The spirit control is said to like a noise/ I can understand the medium liking it— noises can so easily cover the faint sounds of accomplices movïng about. To add to the grotesqueness— if the movement is to be accepted as a religion— there are the suspicion that attaches itself to ail the conditions laid down for the séances, and the conflicting excuses given for the mistakes made. The impersonation of aUeged spirit-guides whom not one Spiritualist can identify— Phinuit, Pheneas, Imperator, Feda, Ivy, Red Cloud, Abduhl Latif, Silver Birch, etc., etc., etc.— ail this is grotesque and suspidous. It is grotesque because the 4 authority 4 of these unidentifiable guides or Controls is placed above that of Jésus Christ. It is suspidous because it affords the medium a cover for the mistakes made : the English language is so difficult ; or the controlhng spirit lived so long ago ; or he is on so advanced a sphere. And since no one to-day ever heard the prophet Malachy or an andent Red Indian speak, any medium can adopt any form of halting English to represent the efforts of these strange folk to express themselves. Sergeant Ellis's 4 Pierre * uses broken English. 4 Hawk Chief, speab'ng in a loud voice and giving a war whoop/ 4 Chloe ’ says, 4 You hâve a big white massa *— Dennis Bradley mentioned in italics : 4 Chloe is an Indian girl, and occasionally uses the vocabulary of her tribe. Men ske always refers to as 44 Massas” * I would like to ask : what did Dennis Bradley know of the vocabulary of Chlœls tribe î and since when did Red Indians adopt the vocabulary of West African negroes i Xts ail too easy 1 Jimmie Sparrow says 4 Blfme/ and at once he is identified ; a Red Indian says 4 Massa/ and at once the identification is complété 1 4 You always know Joan/ says Mr Barbanell, 4 as apart from her squeaky voice, she always says 44 Good night,” instead of 44 Good evening/1,4 [12 4 ] THE CATHOLÏC POINT OF VIEW—I A nd that is called identification î If a voice shouted ont 4 Hallelujah ! ' would that be a proof that the founder of the Salvation Army was présent i The opportunités for mimicry are too obvious ; espedally when the alleged manifesting spirits are claimed to be foreigners of some kind» or persons who died sa long ago that no one living ever heard them speak ; y et the 4 big noises ' in SpirituaKsm nearly ail seem to fall for this grotesque weakness : Dennis Bradley had his * Hookum * ; Conan Doyle had ‘ Pheneas4 ; Stainton Moses had ‘ Imperator * ; Mr. Hannen Swaffer has his 4 White Shadow/ his 4 Silver Birch/ and an andent Egyptian. Mrs. Victoria Helen Duncan chose two characters as her spirit- guides whom none of her clients had ever heard speak : * Peggy/ who seems to daim no surname ; and 4 Albert/ who used to live in the Antipodes. Mr. Hannen Swaffer might change his Red Indian ' guides»* but Mrs. Duncan has stuck to Peggy and Albert for about fifteen years j yet in spite of this faithful attachment they both let her down.1 Mr. C. E. Loseby» her defending Counsel, said at the Old Bafley ; * If Mrs. Duncan has a guide he will be with her now» probably trying to help her here, possibly waiting for an opportunity to help her. If it be true» you may be sure of it here» in the Central Criminal Court * (Portsmouth Evening News, March 27» 1944). An unfortunate statement on Mr. Loseby's part» and a most unfortunately lost opportunity for 4 Albert * 1 After ail we hâve been told by Lady Doyle of the ability of the 4 spirits * to foretell disastrous events it does seem a pity that no spirit gave warning to Mrs. Duncan as to what would happen at Portsmouth. How grotesque, to use Sir Arthur's terml As for the 4 ectoplasm * or * teieplasm,* Mr. Harry Price has given his analysis of that : regurgitated butter-muslin or cheese- cloth or toilet-paper. Regarding the îast commodity» is it a mere coinddence that the name of Mrs. Duncan's ectoplasmic parrot boasted the trade-name of a toilet-paper : * Bronco * i We are told repeatedly by Spiritualists that this so-called ectoplasm is vitally connected with the medium. In the report of Mrs. Duncan's latest trial» we read that Lt. Worth» arranging with M rs. (s1) Homer» * asked if he could bring a surgeon naval officer who was sceptical» and Mrs. Homer replied, 44 Yes» I will 1 It is somewhat strange that, whereas the Rev. Vale Owen's baby daughter pew up in the Summer Land, Mrs. Duncan's “ Peggy " is still but a child, wearing the same OS sise in ladies* vests. [ 125] SPXRITUALISM give him a seat in the front row and scare him stiff.” She said that k the doctor attempted to touch the, ectoplasm it would rush back with such force into Mrs, Duncan's body that it might cause her serious harm or even kill her * (Portsmouth Evenùig News, M arch 2 3 ,1944), If ectoplasm is so very vital to the medium it must form part of her organism. Now Mrs, Victoria Helen Duncan’s ectoplasm could produce rabbits and parrots and cats. That a human being, mediumistic or otherwise, should be able to produce birds, quadrupeds and human beings indiscriminately, and at will, is beyond my powers of credence, It would be interesting, en passant, to know what was the judgment of Sir Oliver Lodge after he had been présent at Mrs, Duncan's exhibition of mediumship. Perhaps the fauna were not included in the séance pro gramme in his day ; in which omission he woüld hâve to take second place to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who once felt a dog's muzzle on his knee at a séance, With regard to the vital connection between the ectoplasm and the medium, Dr, Carlo Angona wrote in a sériés of articles in Lace e Ombra on the alleged matérialisations produced through the mediumship of Eva C. : * Esiste tra i medium e le materiah- zzazoni un rapporto cosi intimo, da causa a effetti, da autorisxarci ad accogliere Pipotesi di un processo teleplastico che si svolge tmicamente per m e^o dell’ attività psichica dei soggetti i lo credo che per ora questo rapporto non sia dimostrato, nè dal punto da vis ta fisico, nè da quello psicologico/ Sînce Dr, Anzona passed that judgment no one has proved that there is a vital nexus, physical or psychological, between the alleged ectoplasm and the medium. It is surely also grotesque that a medium who had been so thoroughly debunked by Mr. Harry Price and later convicted of fraudulent mediumship in a Scottish court should be granted a diploma by the Spirituaüstsf National Union after both exposures. It amounted to a double diploma, since the Spiritualistst National Union felt themselves constrained to discuss the question of the Edinburgh conviction at an Annual General Meeting, A vote was taken, and by a huge majority the diploma was renewed 1 Since then the good lady has carried on her déceptions and frauds apparently under the aegis of the Spiritualists' National Union. Eleven years of continued finandal profit at the expense of sorrowing soûls. Spiritualists, protesting against police con- [ ia6 3 THE CÂTHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— I victions, hâve declared that in their persécution they were Hke the early Christians ; but I do not know of any early Christian who was persecuted shouting ont : * Oh, I hâve donc nothing. I hâve never done anything. Oh, God; is there a God < * Rather, * And cailing in the apostles, after they had scourged them, they charged them that they should not speak at ali in the name of Jésus, and they dismissed them. And they indeed went out from the coundl rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for the name of Jésus f (Acts of the Apostles, v, 4°> 4*)* It îs grotesque to read of Mrs. Helen Duncan dealing her husband * a smashing bîow on the face which sent him reeling * because he suggested she should allow an X-ray photo to be taken on the occasion of her first exposure ; and engaging in * a terrifie struggle * with Miss Maule, which led to her prosecution at Edinburgh in 1933. The Chief Constable of Portsmouth declared that when that struggle took place * Mrs. Duncan used blasphemous language, swung a chair and hit two people in the audience. She said to the woman who had caught hold of the stockmet material : ‘ I will brain y ou* (Portsmouth Evenùtg Nem, April 1, 1944). So îike an early Christian ! If this is the best a twice-diplomaed medium can give us— well, we don't need Arthur Askey to tell us that * It makes you think/ At the very least it makes one wonder what trust can be put in non-diplomaed médiums when the Spiritualists* National Union can pass a vote of confidence in a medium who had twice been convicted of fraud. The cause of Mrs. Helen Duncan, who eould eara over £100 a week by her performances, would mean, in case of conviction in a higher court, such a loss of prestige to the Spiritualists' National Union that a meeting was held in London on April 22, ig44, to consider a further appeal. At a rather late hour in the day, Mr. J. B. Mclndoe informed the audience at that meeting that : * Médiums hâve now been instructed how to conduct themselves so as to avoid threats of prosecution* {Suniay Dispatch, April 23,1944). Now, did anyone ever hear, in modem times, of foÛowers of any religion, barring the pseudo-gnostic type, being warned as to how to conduct themselves to avoid threats of prosecution i The appeal for subscriptions to meet a possible * cost of £2,500 * (if not more) seems to îndicate that Mrs. Helen Duncan, despite her three exposures of fraudulent mediumship, continues to hold the support of Spiritualists. E Ï37l SPIRITUALISM

I would invite aU who stiii believe in ber genuineness to study the photographs of her 4 matérialisations * as published in Mr. Harry Price's books Leaves from a Psychisfs Case-Book and Régurgitation, and the Duncan Mediumship. T h e coat-hanger shoulders of the spirits ; the Father Christmas masks ; the ladies O .S* vests ; the cut-out photographs and the gorgonzola cheese-cloth— 4 smelling lîke death/ as a witness for the defence described it at the Old Bailey— are these really worth an appeal to the House of Lords i It is certainly grotesque to find a warning issued4 to ail médiums ’ about the importance of telîing the truth, and yet to find so much 4 fortune-tellmg * encouraged in their newspapers. I hâve been îaken to task, in a friendly way, by Mr, Ernest W, Oaten, in The Two Worlds, for writing on this subject ; but I stiU would emphasise it. Lady Conan Doyle may protest-—in leaded type— as site has done, that 4 Spiritualists do not countenance fortune-tellmg/ She may add : 4 W e ail loathe it and do ail in our power to stop it ’ ; but as long as Spiritualist periodicals continue to publish the advertisements of fortune-tellers, her protesting will convince no one. When palmiste do as so many médiums do, Lady Doyle tells us it is 4 most wrong/ Where is the différence i The Hamiltons, the Duncans, the Valiantines, the Murphey-Lydys can get away with it ; but4 Madame Pola/ 4 Signor Gaga * and 4 Archie Demos * are4 most wrong/ Why i In my article referred to above, which was accorded honourable mention in The Two Worlds, I gave a summary merely of a long list I hâve of médiums who profess to tell the future by crystals, candies, water, flowers, sand, the Tarot cards (of various types), and so on. I quoted from an article, Chez les Pythonesses de Paris, that the number of such fortune-tellers in Paris was 37,000. Mr, Oaten wanted to know 4 who counted them/ He ought to put that question to the Spiritualist paper that published the article (Echo du Merveilleux) ; or to the 4 Sûreté de Paris * who keep a registration check ; and registration in France was, long before this war, a very thorough thing. Passports and identity cards wete not a war-time régulation ; the very detailed identity-card (Carte dTdentité) was in use in rimes of peace. To the CathoHc, with his keener sense of proportion as to the différence between the dignity and nature of the human soûl and that of the brutes, it is certainly grotesque to read in Spiritualist publications that brute animais survive and pass on to the Summer [ 138 ] THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— I Land ; that 4 pet animais and birds are most numerous ’ there, We may ask : if pet dogs, why not favourite parrots, cherished cats, beloved budgerigars i And why draw the line there i T h e Arab might want his trusty steed ; the Chinese fisherman his most acœmplished cormorant ; the Indian and the African the elect of theîr éléphants ; the stage-entertainer his well-trained seals, and the side-show man his performing fleas, It is indeed grotesque to Jiave the spiritual Heaven of the Christian sneered at a s 4 material,' and then to be offered a heaven where everything is as material as anything on earth— food and drink and houses and sport and financîal interests and love, courtship, marnage and births. Nor must we omit the chance encounters with hapless soûls wandering about in the Summer Land, misérable and tmhappy because the coffee was bad. And when we fînd Mr. Harry Price's4 Conan Doyle ' control denounced as a humbug by 4 Conan Doyle ' manifesting in New York ; and Mr. Hannen Swaffer's * Silver Birch ' declarmg ail other 4 Silver Birchs' as fraudaient, it is amusingly grotesque, It is surely grotesque that the practice of any religion should be fraught with dangers and attended by 4 disastrous results.' And there are those dangers attached to the practices of Spiritualism— dangers to mental balance, to moral judgment, to Christian faith, and dangers of obsession and possible actual possession. Dr. J. M. Peebles, m reply to a question I put to him, wrote : ' Emphatically I do think the îndiscriminate use of planchette dangerous— dangerous as médianes misused ; dangerous as floods that drown— or fires that bum dties. . . . Be sure, mis- understood and misdirected mediumship may cause în-harmony, ill-health, and doubtless does lead to obsessions.' Like ail Spiritualists who admit the dangers, he goes on to add that under the * right conditions ' the danger is obviated. But that is not true. No matter what attempt is made to secure a drde under what are generally considered the right conditions, viz. that the drcle be composed only of people of good moral character, who are actuated by the highest motives and convinced of the truth of SpirituaHsm, there is always danger, Hence the wamings issued by Stainton Moses, Dr. Peebles, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dennis Bradley and the rest. Let me cite an instance in support of my statement that the securing of ail the right conditions does not obviate the danger. [ 139 3 I SPIRITUALISME

À very exclusive drcle of sitters had been trying for sortie time to secure a genuine and complété matérialisation. Repeatedly at theîr séances an earth-bound spirit interfered to spoil the séance. Acdng on the prindple that * like attracts like/ three of the drcle decided that there was one person amongst the party of sitters who was probably the attraction for the poltergeisU They decided to exclttde this gentleman from their next sitting. The gentleman took the huff, but stayed away. His angry resentment at being excluded &om the very spécial attempt at complété matérialisation, where everything had been done to secure the best conditions, resulted in pandémonium and in something very tiear disaster to those présent. 4 How the medium did not lose her reason, I don't know. Luckily I had sufficient presence of mind to ask the earthbound spirit how he came to be présent. He told me that after the Major went away, angry at his exclusion, he formed a drcle of his own at which the particular evil spirit manifested, as usual ; whereupon the M ajor told him to go along and spoü the test séance. It was like hell itself ht loose I * That story was told to me by Miss Felicia Scatcherd in the presence of the late Mr. David Gow, in the office of Light. If such be the risks run by educated and expert Spiritualists, what must not the danger be for the less educated and less expert, and for those whose minds are unbalanced by grief î These latter, above ah, shouid avoid the séance-room, be it public or private. One after another the more responsible Spiritualists and psychical researchers issue their warnings against this dabbling with the occult. Sir Oliver Lodge warned 4 bereaved persons * against * getting communications# from the spirit world. He also issued a strong 4 word of waming to those who find that they possess any unusual power ha the psychic direction' (Raymond, p. 382). On another page (325) he said : * To give up your own judgment and dépend solely on adventitious aid is a grave blunder, and may in the long run hâve dîsastraus conséquences/ * It may be asked/ he wrote further on, 4 do I recommend ail bereaved persons to devote the time and attention which I hâve done to getting communications and recording them i Most certaMy I do not* (p. 342). In W s4 Foreword * to Leaves from a Psychisfs Case-Book (p. 15), M r. Harry Price writes : 4 A final waming : Unless a person is

[ 130 3 THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW—I very evenly balanced, is healthy in mind and body, and possesses a keen, discriminating judgment, he should leave splritualism and psychical research severdy alone/ Dennis H» Bradley, in . . . And After (p. 396), also issued bis waming : ' In psychics, the great unsdentifically-minded mass, who bave made a few trifling and indiscriminate expérimenta, expose themseîves to the dangers 0/ obsession / M r. Harry Boddington in his * Advice to Médiums who are de- velo p in g# (.Psychic News, Jamtary 6, 1934), warns his readers against allowmg ‘ spirit control/ which, he adds, 4 should be re- sisted unless experienced friends are présent. . . . Nearly ail get indefinable sensations akin to incipient control/ Mr. Price relates how, during a sitting with Stella, the 4 electric girl/ 4 Pro- fessor Julian Huxley deliberately relaxed and nearly went into a trance State/ Mr. Boddington adds : 4 Remember in addition (to the headaches, etc.) you will sense more acutely the thoughts and feelings of spirit people who will do their best to impress you. These are not always pleasant, and may perhaps cling to you in a somewhat embarrassing fashion/ He goes on to warn devdopîng médiums that spirits 4 throng round ' them in response to their request. Some of these are * drifters in spirit life who are not fully consdotts that they no longer occupy a physical body, Their uppermost thoughts will be that they are very, very itt* and it is qirite possible for sensitives to catch this thought. . . . 4 Cases of nervous prostration may often be traced to this inter action of soûl upon soûl/ Sixty-five years ago Stainton Moses gave advice on 4 The Forming of a Circle/ in which warnings are contained almost identical with those of Mr. Boddington. He wrote : 4 Should an attempt be made to entrante the medium, or to manifest by any violent methods, ask that the attempt may be deferred tiH you can secure the presence of some experienced Spirituaüst. K this request is not heeded, discontinue the sitting. The process of developing a trance medium is one that might dis concert an inexperienced enquirer/ Thus it would seem that during a period of over half a century, from the days of Stainton Moses to those of Mr. Harry Bodding ton, despite Sir William Barrett’s wishful prophecy of ptogress in the means of spirit-communication, the same dangers and difficulties exist for the enquirer. One wonders how many enquirers during that period hâve paid the penalty, Pandora-like, [ 13 13 SPIRITUALISM because they tried to develop mediumship without knowing what précautions shouid be taken. So there you hâve it as an équation : Psychical Research -f Hymns — Spiritualism,. And that, with its attendant lying, frauda trickery, impostures, ectoplasmic parrots and dangers, is offered to us by many of its adhérents as a Religion 1

II We may ask : Why ail this sneering and contempt and hatred for the Catholic Church almost exdusively i W hy ail these expressions of enmity and disparagement such as * the Catholic monopoly of miracles/ * the infernal band of dominating Catholic priesthood/ and the like i There are three reasons for it : first, because the Catholic Church is so utterly and uncompromisingly opposed to Spiritualism j secondly, because these contemptuous critics are ignorant of Catholic doctrine j _ and thirdly, because of a really devilish hatred of Catholic Christianity* With regard to the first, Professor Joad writes : * I infer that the ordinary religious conception of the universe is unfavourable to the spiritualist hypothesis, and it is not without interest to note that most religious organisations condemn the performances of the séance room with as much definiteness as in the twentieth century they permit themselves to condemn anything, the CathoHcs, as muai, providing an exception to the prevailing anæmia of religious conviction by downright denunciation of intercourse with what they do not hesitate to call evil spirits and even démons and devils * (Guide to Modem Thought, pp. 147-8) ♦ Others attack Catholicism out of the abundance of their ignorance. When Mr. Oaten, forgettxng the elaborate cérémonial of lodge meetings, or of a présentation at Court, criticises * the Vestments, the Postures, the swinging of the Censer, and various other artistic but useless forms of genuflection at a Roman Catholic service/ he betrays his ignorance of the meaning and symbolism of the cérémonial ; he fails to see why, if débutantes must wear three feathers in their hair, leam how to bow and curtsey, and how to walk backwards from the Royal Presence after présentation, Catholic cérémonial should not be as particular when it is ail directed to Him Whom we believe to be the King of Kings. Few [ 1 33 ] THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— II people are ignorant, I fancy, of the ‘ Posturings ' at a lodge initia tion ceremony, or of the abbreviated * vestments* of apron and sash, for which a symbolism is claimed. If we may excuse the editor o f The Two Worîds for his ignorance concerning the symbol ism of Cathoüc cérémonial we cannot excuse his ignorance when he States that the Christian heaven is ‘ based upon the taies of the Arabian Nights ' (The Two Worlds, Feb. 6, 1931), The general impression one gets from reading Spiritualists' attacks on the Catholic Church is that the bulk of their ideas of Catholicism are derived from the denunciations of hot-gospeüers and ill-informed revivalist preachers, whose sole sources of information seem to be Fox's Book of Martyrs, Maria Mortk, and the publications of the Rationalist Tract Association. Even Dr. J. M . Peebles betrayed his ignorance of things Catholic. In his Demonism of the Ages he describes a vision (?) that was seen by a medium whose services he frequently sought. His report, which betrays not only ignorance but also his credulity, is given very solemnly : 4 A man is seen coming down the mountain side. He ap- proaches the cloud and dehvers a poeticaî address on the subject of spiritual unfoldment, making use of the flower as an illustra tion. His head is shaven and he is in the garh of a friar, a long gray gown with a corded helt at the waist. After he bas finished his address, we ask him if he is a member of any ecclesiastical order. He answers, 44 The Society of Jésus ; but, no longer.” Adding, 44 Blâme no one.” f Thus the Rev. Dr. Peebles, a minister, a Doctor of Medicine, a Master of Arts, and a very widely travelled man. Despite his travelling and his attainments he swallows the taie of a medium that Jesuits hâve shaven heads, wear gray gowns and corded belts, and are friars. I doubt if the reverend Fathers of the Society of Jésus, at Farm Street, would be able to recognise any of their confrères in such attire. As a test for identity the detaüed descrip tion is a complété flop ; yet, owing to his ignorance of things Catholic, it satisfied Dr. Peebles . . . and he, with his eighty years of dévotion to Spiritualism, was a really outstanding personage in the movement. As for the third explanation, that of hatred of everything Catholic, it is evidenced by the blasphemy of the atheistic A. J, Smyth ; by the obscene blasphemies of M. le Chevalier le Clément de St, Marcq, and by the whole 4 Red Catechism * tone of the Lycenm Manual issued by the British Spiritualists* Lyceum Union.

[ m 3 SPIRITUALdbM

M y questioner may say : * Y ou blâme Spiritualist sodetites for sponsoring fraudulent médiums ; you blâme the Spiritualist press ; you blâme médiums Wholesale ; you condemn the whole movement as of the devil. Well, what has the Cathoüc Church to offer in the place of Spiritualism i * The Catholic Church offers what Augustine Birrell so aptfy and truly described as * a neat assortment of cohérent, inter dépendant, logical opinions/ She has more than that to offer, It is not * opinions * merely that she offers : it is fixed, defined, unshakeable Truth ; and the conséquent spiritual aids of universal prayers and the sacraments. *1116 foundation of Catholic Faith is, in the first place, human reason. The Apostle tells us to give to God our * reasonaMe service/ Ours is not a blind surrender of our judgment to rite alleged spirit-message from an unidentifiable scalp-hunting Red ïndian. It is a faith backed by reason. We argue as follows : For the Christian the first considération is the question of the existence of God, because religion, in the accepted and genuine sense of the word, means nothing else but the scheme of man’s relationship towards God, that is, the service of the créature to his Creator. In order, then, to hâve any foundation for religion in its true sense we must be convinced of the existence of God, and that God may be the object of religion. He must be a God with Whom it is possible to enter into some kind of personal com munication. Moreover, God as God must be suprême and all-powerful ; otherwise there would be some other power to which higher considération would be due than that which is due to God. We could not pay divine honours to a God of limited powers— for a God of limited powers is, from a Christian point of view, a contradiction in terms. What then must be out attitude towards Him i To answer that question I propose to-analyse the working of the mind of a Christian with regard to his religious standpoint. Starting as an enquirer from the point of view of reason and accepting the varions arguments of reason for the existence of the Suprême Being, God Almighty, vi?., the argument from Design in the universe ; the argument from Cause and Effect ; the teleological argument, that there is a purpose for ail things ; the arguments, from conscience, from motion, and so on— we reason out his position thus— C134] THE CATHOLXC POINT OF VIEW— II A man says to himself : I exist. God made me, I hâve certain qualities of health and strength ; certain powers o£ sensation hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch ; I hâve certain instincts of self-preservation and the like. But my experxence tells me that the brute animal world around me has similar powers of sensation, keener, perhaps, than mine ; it, too, has similar instincts of self-preservation, Yet, on reflection, I cannot but be convinced that I am, in the true sense of the Word, superior to any member of the brute création î I possess powers that they hâve not, intellectual powers of memory, understanding and will. My memory is not a mere record of sensations, like that of the dog, for instance ; it is a memory of far higher attainments ; it records a thousand and one things that are the object of my intellect— and my intellect deals with the considération not of material things only, of sense-impressions, but with abstract ideas, such as truth, justice, equity, goodness ; it deals with scientific truths, with mathematical propositions, with ethical principles— and my memory can record ail the workings of my intellect and will with regard to these abstract thoughts : considération, comparison, sélection, judgment and choice. I hâve, then, something that is not possessed by any of the brute création, I call that something my Soûl, It is a ratfonal soûl, gifted with the powers of memory, understanding and wiU, These gifts of health and strength, these powers of sensation, my great instincts, my intellectual abilities, I know are given to me by my Creator, W hat then { I get a dog. The dog learns to look upon me as its master. It grows to recognise, in a way, that it owes me a retum for my care of it and so it demonstrates its affection by wagging its tall at my approach, by trying to lick my hands, by barkmg its satis faction. It does more : it attempts to render me a service by waming me of the presence of possibly unwelcome strangers, and it learns to be obedient to my commands. AU for what s* Because I feed it and house it and care for it. But my Creator has done more for me than I couîd do for any animal. He has given me ail I possess, By His faveur am what I am as regards goodness and indiffèrent things : charitable- ness, patience, prosperity, intellectual attainments, Only the bad in me is my own. ShaU I then be less grateful to Him than a dog is to its master î [ 135] SPIRITUALISM

F ree in T hought Y et what can I do by way of return i AU I hâve He has given me— my health, my strength, my possessions, He has no need of these* Can I, then, give Him anything He would appreciate i Is there anything I possess that ï can refuse Him and that He will not take from me by force i Yes, there is : the use of those two highest natural gifts He has given me of reason and of wül ; the service of these He will not compel me to give, These are the things He would appreciate, because my will is free and He will not constrain it ; my inteUect, too, is free, and He will not force it* If it is the service of these faculties that I am to offer, how am I to do it i Has He at any time made known to man that in the service of the intellect and will lies the key to the worship of the Creator i Is it possible for Him to hâve ever made known in what particular way these two powers should be used to honour Him i Would such a révélation be of any use i W ould it be possible i Is it necessary i For the Christian the answer to ail three questions is : Yes. Révélation is useful, possible and necessary* It is useful because of the existence of mysteries in the truths of religion— and by a mystery is meant a hidden truth, the knowledge and understanding of which we cannot of ourselves attain* There are the truths which are a mystery solely because their existence is not known ; and there are truths which remain mysteries, as far as under standing them goes, even when their existence is known.

M y s t e r ie s But the question of mysteries need not disturb us. Natural reasoning from our daily expérience proves that there is much in the world around us that we cannot understand— visible, created and finîte changes that are a mystery' to us ; much more may we expect tofind mysteries when we corne to deal with the invisible and infinité. And if human reason, despite the accumu- lated knowledge of thousands of yearsf study, of progress and invention, is utterly mystified with regard to objects of sensation whose existence it knows, how much less is it capable of under standing divine, supra-sensible things i The problems of sleep and dreams and growth still puzale us ; [136] THE CATHOLIC POINT *OF VIEW— II the nature of electridty, light, sound and magnetism has yet to be discovered. The révélation of mysteries by God leads to a sublimer Idea of Him and to a more perfect knowledge of Him. It urges the intellect to seek to know more about Him, Moreover, it is necessary, not only because certain truths being mysteries cotdd not otherwise be believed in, but also because in order to know ail the truths of the strictly moral order divine help and révélation is necessary for man, History amply testifies to the fact that despite eamest and deep study, men ignorant of divine révélation were also for centuries ignorant of the most primary moral and social truths. Their incredible forgetfulness of their last end and destiny and of their duties to their fellowmen, shows that divine révélation is necessary in order to bring man to a right knowledge of his end and duties. Every great religious System makes some claim to be God- revealed. Each System calls for some form of faith and obedience. But how am I to tell which of ail the various religious beîiefs of importance is the one my Creator wishes me to embrace t M any differ so fundamentally in dogmatic and in moral teaching, We find polytheism as opposed to monotheism ; polygamy as opposed to monogamy ; déniai of the doctrine of the Holy Trim’ty as opposed to behef in the three Persons in one God ; déniai of the divinity of Christ as opposed to belief in His divimty ; and so on, and so on. Evidently a 11 these contradictory beüefs cannot be divinely revealed, God, as the God of truth, cannot be the author of contradictory révélations, Is there any means, then, of recognising the genuine Révélation of Almighty God i There must be. He must hâve made known what truths are to be believed (the service of the intellect or reason), and what commands are to be obeyed (the service of the wili), and how these truths and commandments are to be recognised as coming fram Hùn, There must be some hall-mark, test, criterion— caU it what yott wül— that stamps or indicates the Révélation as divine* God as the Father and Creator of all human beings— black or white or yellow or red— must wish all His children to serve Htm in truth, Hence this Révélation is meant for all men, for the millions who cannot read as weU as for the keenest intellects that even modem times hâve produced ; and so the test of the gentune- ness of the divine origin of the Révélation must be one that is o f 1*37 3 SPIRITUAL ISM equally compelKng value to ail men* since it is to be the standard of judgment for ail» W hat test ss there that would strike ail men equaUy fordbly i There ss the test of miracles. W hat is a * m iraclef i I know that Spiritualists talk about the4 miracles of the séance- room/ I know they talk contemptuously o f 4 the Church's monopoly of miracles * ; but in the question of miracles we are dealing with Thedogy ; and jus$ as the sdentist* be he a physidst or mathe- matician or medical man, resents the theologian interpreting the tenus of scientific théories or formulae in any but those of Science* sothe theologian daims the right to hâve his définitions interpreted in a theological sense ; the more so since the theologian has centuries of backing for his définitions* whereas the sdentist is constantly changing his théories and hypothèses. As Professor Joad says in his Guide to Modem Thought* Sdence has a new theory of the atom at the rate of one every four or five years. Well* what does Catholic Theology give as an accurate définition of a miracle t It defines a mirade as : 4 Opus sensibile* divinitus factum* praeter ordinem communiter servatum in rebus *— Le. a sensible sign* meaning one that can be observed by the senses (Keating, sight) ; worked by Almighty God ; and beyond the ordinary powers of nature. There are three éléments in that définition* and they are att important : (i) a sensible sign or operation ; (2) performed by God ; and (3) having an extraordinary rareness of character. 1. Men differ very considerably in intellectual attainments ; but the most unskilled labourer can* as a rule, trust the evidence of his senses as reliably as can a professor of sdence. In a court of iaw a witness does not need to be a graduate of the University of Cambridge in order to testify as to who was to blâme in the case of a Street motor accident. The testimony of a casual labourer is as good as that of a doctor with regard to what both hâve actuafly witnessed, a. It must be worked by God— because it has to give the hall- mark of its divine origin ; as though Almighty God was under- so to speak* the doctrines in faveur of which the m irade is performed. 3. It must be of an extraordinary character— in order to arrest attention and impress the beholder . . ♦ and make bim think. As an example— taking the New Testament merely* for the time being* as an historical document— we hâve the accouat of the [13&] THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— II

rassmg of Lazarus to life. There were présent on that occasion people of every class of life and of varying degrees of tnrdW tttaî '*■ attainment, from the hired mourners to the priests ffom the temple of Jérusalem. AU knew that Laçants had been buried four days. AU heard Christ's prayer to God* His Fathen-** I give Thee thanks that Thou hast heard me/ AU heard Christ indicate the purpose of what He was about to do : ' because of ète people who stand about hâve I said it r— he, addressed God in heaven, that they might recognise it as the mrk of God— aad, secondly, 4 that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me/ AU saw the covering of the tomb removed. AU heard the command : 4 Lazarus, corne forth/ AU saw him 4 that had been dead corne forth/ In the face of that classic example of a miracle, cm anyone find fault with the Catholic définition I hâve given i In that Hght, can the phenomena of psychicai research or of Spiritualism be called miracles 4 If miracles were to occur every day and at any hour one wanted they would cease to be miracles. The condition * praeter ordinem communiter servatum m rebus * would be absent. They fulfil the condition of 4 sensible signs/ but there is no indication that they are the work of God (4 dîviwtus factum *) i it is only Auntie Maggie, or Silver Birch, or Ivy. But if I can find a religion that is backed up by such wonders as can be strictly called miracles, then I hâve proof positive that my Creator approves of that religion ; since God, who is Truffa itself, cannot lend Himself to support falsehood. I apply tbis test to the various religious Systems, and I discover that only in Judaism and in Christianity do ï find real miracles worked in support of religious teaching. I discover, too, that Judaism was only a préparation for Christianity ; thayt a Savwur was promised (Messiah) Who would fulfil ail thmgs. I find, too, that the reaction at His Corning was similar to that of the people who witnessed the raising of Lazarus from the tomb—* maay believed in Him/ but others, 4 because He worked many miracles** set about to accompüsh the destruction of both Hîmself and Hîs Church. Moreover, I find that once Christ aune—the préparation by Judaism having been completed— no further miracles were worked in favour of Judaism, but only for Christianity. Nor dû I find that the Jews daim that God worked miracles for them rince the ooming of Christ. This fact ieads me to study the Christian Sacred Scriptares, l*S9 l SPIRÏTUALISM which combine the Hebrew Révélation with their own Révélation of Christ* Convinced that in these two sets of Books I havè the Révélation of God, the question arises what ought to be the attitude of a man to this revealed truth i The answer is î faith— that is : a firm, intellectual assent to revealed truth on the authority of God Who reveals it* The very prophedes of the Old (or Jewish) Testament wera miracles. Their fulfilment évidences their truth* Hence I accept the divine origin of both the Old and the New Testaments : I accept the Bible as divinely inspired. Now the New Testament présents me with not only the claim of Jésus Christ to be God, it gives me proof of that claim in His Résurrection from the dead* T hat is the truth, the indisputable fact, which was preached by the Apostles to both Jew and Gentile. At the élection of the apostle who was to take the place of the traitor Judas one of the chief qualifications for sélection was the ability of being able to testify to the fact of Christ's Résurrection. That was indicated as being the burden of apostolic preaching. Jésus Himself had said in His address of farewell î 4 These are the words that I spoke to you while I was yet with you, and ail things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me. * Then He opened their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures. And He said to them : Thus it is written/and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again from the dead the third day . . . and you are witnesses of these things * (St. Luke xxiv). And so we find St. Peter addressing his small congrégation of one hundred and twenty persons, in the upper room, on the first Whit Sunday, saying : * Wherefore of these men who hâve companied with us, ail the time that the Lord Jésus came in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day wherein He was taken up from us, one of these must he mode a mtness with us of His Résurrection * (Acts i, 22). This witnessing to the fact of the Résurrection of Jésus from the dead was emphasised in order to drive home the proof and truth o f His Dimnity— that Christ was G od* That being so I read my New Testament once more to consider and study it, not now merely as an historié document but as the Révélation of God. In the light of what my reasomng has led me to belîeve as to the divinity of Christ ail in His life and teaching takes ont a new aspect ; it has a new value. His authority to teach C140] THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW— II and to command is no longer that of a prophet merely, a messenger from God ; no, it is the authority of God ; it is God Himself Who speaks. In the Old Testament the prophets, speaking under the inspiration of God, as the spokesmen of God, said : * Thus saith the Lord/ But not so Christ ; He uses a totally different form of words ; He déclarés : 41 say to you . . / ; 4 It was said to you of old » * ♦, but I say to you ♦ . ♦ ** j 4 Amen, amen, I say to you ♦ * ** He daims, what was blasphemy to the Jews, to be 4 Lord of the Sabbath * ; He daims to hâve existed before Abra ham was bom ; He déclarés î 4 1 and the Father are one/ Even the uneducated, the common people, recognised the note î 4 And the people heard Hin gladly, because He spoke as one having authority/ It was the authority of His Godhead* I note also now, with a new significance, that one great complaint He had against the leaders of the Jews espedally was their refusai to believe in His teaching— their want of faith. He called them 4 an incredulous génération/ He dedared their unbelief a sin î 4 If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would hâve no sin ; but now they hâve no excuse for their sin/ I see, further, that this Divine Teacher set up a Chttrck ta per- petuate His teaching ; that He appointed leaders and teachers to speak in His name, and with His authority î 4 Aü power is given to Me in heaven and on earth, therefore go ye and teach ah things that I hâve commanded you/ He promises, moreover, that in their preaching and teaching they shall be guarded and guided by the Holy Spirit of God, and that He would be with them ail days, even to the consummation of the world. Christ, then, Who is God, founded that Church, gave it autho rity to speak in His name, and promised it mdefechbility. What else can I reasonably do but accept its teaching with faith i But my trouble is that there are so many Churches and secm teaching contradictory doctrines and opposed one to the other, some believing in the Divinity of Christ, otfaers denving i t } some holding a sacramental System, others rejecting ail sacraments ; some insisting on the rite of Baptism, others holding Baptism of no account— and yet ail daim to represent the true Church of Christ» How am I to tell which really is that Church i Again I use my reasoning powers and I ask myself t What characteristics, or notes, would I expert to find in the Church of Christ i To begin with I would expect to be abie to trace an unbroken [ 14x 3 SPIRITUALISM line of atjthority to ride, and to teach, and to hand on tire powers winch Christ eonferred on th>e Apostles# and to do so as easily as I can trace the anthority of our présent king to sit on the throne cïf England to-day. The Church of Christ must hold to-day the doctrines and traditions of the Apostles ; she must dérivé her Orders and her Mission from them. Jésus Christ# as I hâve seen# is G od- Incarnate ; I wouîd expect# then# to see the fulfilment of His prayer at the Last Supper, That prayer was concerned almost entirely with Faith and unity# a unity not amongst the Apostles only but a unity of * ail who tbrough their teaching shaîi believe in Me/ It was to be a unity of a supernatural character : nations might change their form of government from monarchism to repubücanism or to totali- tarianism ; politidans might alter their views from Conservatism to Liberaüsm or Communism ; there might be fashions in art and musdc and literature ; sdentists might change their théories on life and matter repeatedly—but the Unity for which Christ prayed# a U nity o f Faith and Worship and Allegiance# was to be one that would astonish the world : ' That they may be one# as Thou# Father# in Me and I in Thee# that the world may believe that Thoa hast sent Me* And since Christ came to 4 fulfil the Law/ that is# to call ail m ea to perfection# I would expect to find His Church teaching a holy doctrine# and providing the means to become holy to ail her children. Further# I would look to see that in every âge there would be many who answering that call would# like the Apostles# * leave father and mother and wife and diildren and land ' to follow Him, In short I should expect to find a long succession of men and women who had * left ail things * to practise that hernie hoüness which produces Saints* Lasdy, rince Christ gave the command to 4 teach ail nations aü that I hâve commanded you,f I would look for the attempt to do so to begin at once after His departure and to continue to the présent time. I then apply these notes or characteristics to the various religions organisations which daim to represent the Church of Christ# and I find that in none of them are ail the four essential notes realised# except in the Roman Catholic Church. So I sum up the situation at the bar of reason, and I say : God wants me to serve Him in His way ; He bas rnade that way known to me through Jésus Christ ; I hâve the certainty of that through the evideace of mirades # [ 14 a] THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEV^-II Only one Church to-day can properly daim to be so suppocted b f God ; and That Church possesses ail the essential characteristics which I would look for in the true Church of Christ— ApostolidCv Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity ; r That Church has the Authority of Christ Himselfj and ïesus Christ is G o d } As God He commanded that Church to preach and teach m His name ; ' AU pomr is given to M e in heaven and on earth t h e r e f o r e go ye and preach a i l things that I hâve commanded you/ He promised to His Church the guidance of the Hdv Ghost whom He calls ' the Spirit of Truth ' ; lasdy, He promised that that Church would never failt because He would he with it * a 11 days, even to the consummation of the world/ What that Church asks of me is what Christ asked of ail to whom He spoke— Faith» It is not faith in the sense of mere confidence or trust, but faith as an intellectual assmt to rmealed truth» It is to lead me to say : * I believe/ M, les Chevalier le Clément de S t Marcq and other Spiritualisa may sneer at faith as ' that little night-light so precious to our ancestors in days gone by/ but neither S t Marcq nor any other Spirituahst with their questionable * Silver Bûches ' and ' Red Clouds * can supplaht the authority and trustwoithiness of God Who is Truth Itself» Using rny powers of reason I see that Christianity à a fm t I.do not need to be a profound philosopher nor a very leamed historian to see what it has done for the élévation of womanhood ; for éducation ; for art and music and architecture ; for science even but I do fail to see one single thùig that Spiritualism ha« done to provide real inspiration for anything, Spiritualism m ay claim the ringing of bells, whether on Christmas trees or not, and the movement of trumpets (y/6—or luminous 7/6) as miracles ; it may grant diplomas to médiums after they hâve been detected in fraud ; it may concerta with the length of meals and the delicacy of fabrics to be had in the Summer Land ; it may try to prove that psychical experiments and hymns = ersatz religion, but— it has m Mèxm God FIRST» Let me end by quoting the following passage from the writrng of an agnostic* * If, on the other hand, we adopt the kind of hypothesis with regard to the nature of the universe which Christianity requires, [ HB ] SPIRITUALISM the phenomena of spiritualism become uninteUigible. That the universe may be the création of an omnipotent, personal deity is conceivable ; that the human spirit is immortal and survives the destruction of the body is aîso conceivable» Given these îwo premises, we may further suppose either that God permits us to know the fact of immortality, or for reasons of His own withholds the knowledge» But that He should allow it neither to be known nor not to be known, but to be suspected merely, the suspicion being founded upon equivocal phenomena occurring in the dim light and doubtful atmosphère of the séance room, is to me utterly inconceivable* The atmosphère of the laboratory is clear and obvious j it is an atmosphère favourable to the discovery of concrète fact. The atmosphère of the cathédral is equally known, and, at its best, equally respect-worthy ; it fosters faith, encourages contemplation and sharpens the vision of spiritual truth. But the séance room with its ail too close affinity to the alchemy and witchcraft of the past, its longing for a sign and its crude appeal to the appetite for thrills and the love of the marvellous, is pôles asunder from either of these, and it is, to say the least of it, unlikely that a benevolent creator should go out of his way to choose it as a medium for conveying to his créatures profound truths in regard to the nature and future of the human soûl ' (Guide to Modem Thought, p» 147)» That is not an a priori argument ; it is a reasoned judgment from a better understanding of the nature of God than Spiritualists seem to possess. AU Catholics can accept that view or argument of Professor Joad. Mr» B. W» Wallis, a former editor of Lightf declared at the Geneva Congress : 4 Spiritualism is the highest form of Pro- testantism.' That's as may be; but my verdict coïncides with that of M. Philippe, who ended his address to the same Congress ; 41 conclude, with ail my energy : No, Spirituahsm is not ; no, Spiritualism never shall be ; no, Spiritualism ought not to be a religion l* And that emphatic déclaration, uttered in the presence of représentative Spiritualists from ail over the world^was foÛowed by 4 kmd applause * (vifs applaudissements)»

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